


Here's Looking at You, Boy Wonder

by leradny



Series: Here's Looking at You [1]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Like a sailor, Swearing, Underage Drinking, listen artemis is the daughter of criminals and going to high school in gotham, she is going to swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5926027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leradny/pseuds/leradny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Juggling a posh school, a criminal family, and her slightly criminal vigilante job is hard. One day, Artemis gets distracted by a freshman watching Game of Thrones on campus. An AU where Artemis goes out with Dick instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Semester 1: qwerty

**Author's Note:**

> There is teenage sex, alcohol consumption, and drug use in later chapters. This one just has a concussion and references to Game of Thrones.
> 
> This was written two years ago and posted to Tumblr. I'm very fond of it. It started out as a parody of common trends in Traught fics on tumblr (at least), and then got v. serious contemplating secret identities among Gotham superheroes. Don't worry, this ends sort of happily.
> 
> The sequel (which is still fucking unfinished a year later) is not remotely happy. At all.

Artemis doesn’t have a TV. There was never any time for it in her childhood. She doesn’t have a laptop, either, besides that brand-spanking new Mac delivered to her doorstop with an official-looking “Gotham Academy” label taped onto the box.

Funny thing about the Mac. Her mom bought a metric shitton of school supplies like paper and highlighters before the laptop came along. So, on her first day at Gotham Academy, Artemis smuggled her laptop to school with the old-fashioned school things. The extra weight didn’t bother her. Not as much as how excited Artemis’ mom was buying all those things when Artemis might not even use them.

 It turned out there was a roughly even mix of laptops and binders. This was because the teachers, who actually cared, wandered through the rows to check for dawdlers and gave a special daggery glare to laptops in particular. Headphones were not allowed, point blank, which seriously limited activities. Artemis settled into the routine of taking notes by hand in class, then pulling her laptop out from under Jade’s old mattress and writing essays at home.

That is an old Gotham habit. Just because Artemis is poor with an asshole villain of a father doesn’t mean she won’t get robbed of what few nice things she has.

Sometimes Artemis takes her laptop to school. She has made a few friends. But sometimes she just wants to eat alone. Taking out her laptop to peer intently at the screen every few minutes is enough to ensure a bubble of quiet.

The weird freshman who’d taken a surprise picture with her is somewhere to the side of her vision most days. Artemis has algebra with him. Richard… something. Rick? Rich? (Technically, everyone here is rich except for Artemis. Which sounds like something Robin would say.)

Most of the people Artemis sees the boy with are upperclassmen. He’s usually with the redheaded girl in Artemis’ English class, but he is never part of the same group twice. Drifting. From aspiring librarians to football players.

Sometimes Artemis catches him glancing at her in Algebra. Or in the hall. And she keeps waiting for him to walk up. But whenever he catches her catching him, he always smiles and looks away really fast. If he hadn’t been the one to randomly ambush her, Artemis would say he looked shy. Why he won’t approach her, of all people, she can’t say.

Today Artemis takes out her laptop and pecks at the keyboard with one hand, wishing she had headphones so she could listen to music. Reflected in the first page of a history essay is the freshman in profile, with large headphones that she covets for a second. He sits alone at a table for two. People walking by tap him on the shoulder, but all he gives is a nod.

Artemis has half-finished the disturbingly good tomato soup (in an actual ceramic bowl instead of flimsy cardboard, with actual silverware instead of plastic sporks) when the freshman gasps. By the time Artemis looks up, he’s slammed his laptop shut in order to rest his head on it, clutching his temples.

No one else seems to have noticed.

This is where Artemis wavers. Even if a random classmate doesn’t know she’s a superhero, Artemis knows. And she feels obliged to at least go over and ask if he’s okay. So there’s nothing left to do but ask Indra at the next table over to watch her things.

Artemis takes a deep breath as she walks up. She has faced down evil robots. A skinny freshman who won’t talk to her shouldn’t be a big deal. “Um, hi.” He shifts his face up as Artemis approaches, and the nicest pair of blue eyes stare up at her. “Just wondering… Are you okay?”

“Ned Stark has died,” he moans.

The first thing she thinks of is someone related to Tony Stark, but he’s not even a Gotham man. Artemis knows very little about him and cares even less. On the other hand, the kid isn’t related to whoever Ned Stark is, otherwise he’d have said ‘dad’ or 'uncle’ or something instead of a full name.

Speaking of the kid, he finally lifts his head while Artemis remains frozen in a debate of what to say next. The carefully combed black hair is now ruined.

“You don’t watch Game of Thrones, do you?”

Oh. That show.

“Nope,” Artemis says. She starts walking away.

“But wait, I need someone to catch up to season two with me!”

“I don’t have time to binge on TV. I have homework.” Once again, Artemis reminds herself to think up a less snobbish lie. “And I don’t even have a TV so I can’t watch it at the same time, either.” That happens to be true, but it makes her sound snobby and poor.

Then the kid turns on a smile that can probably double as solar power. The combination of messy black hair and smile makes Artemis think a little of Robin, before Artemis remembers she is intensely annoyed with this boy.

“If you watch it on my laptop, you can.”

“How will you do your homework, then?” When did she become her mother?

“I’ll do it on my other laptop.” He pulls another one out of his backpack and displays it as proudly as any father. “This is for school. I built that one specifically for fun.”

Whether he means the laptop’s purpose or the act of building the laptop is irrelevant. Looks like she’ll have to use blunt honesty. Artemis scoffs. “I’m still not interested.”

“But–” Oh, this boy is good at faces. His weapon of choice switches to some half-lidded puppy dog eyes and Artemis almost rethinks her position. “No one else is comfortable watching it with me.”

“Why? What’s it about?”

“Murder… Sex… Attempted murder… And sometimes magic.”

Artemis narrows her eyes. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Yeah, no. We might be in Gotham but I stick to whatever standards I have.” Artemis turns around. “That means not watching graphic nudity with a fourteen year old.”

“If you had Mr. Collins’s class on sexuality, you had to sit through fifteen minutes of uncensored childbirth with twenty other people, which has roughly the same amount of blood as the average Game of Thrones episode! And it isn’t even fun to watch.”

Artemis tried so hard to forget about that. But at least she finally understands the phrase 'a face only a mother could love’. No amount of cute pink or blue blankets could disguise the fact that newborns looked like cooked lobsters. She hadn’t seen any freshmen in her class, but she’d been switching between covering her eyes and plugging her ears.

How did her mom do that twice?

“Point.” Artemis sits down at the table, then remembers Indra is still watching her stuff and stands up again. “I’ll get my things and fit in one episode. Exactly one. The first. Beyond that, I can’t make any promises.”

This is the point where Artemis expects him to throw his hands in the air, but instead he smiles shakily. Like he didn’t really think it would work and he doesn’t quite know what to do with his victory. When Artemis comes back he pivots his laptop and nudges it over so they can both see it.

“By the way, I’m Dick.”

Well, now she feels sorry for him. “I’m Artemis.”

\- - -

Just after Artemis decides that the direwolf puppies are kind of cute, but only because the white one reminds her of Wolf, the lunch bell rings. Artemis swears in Vietnamese.

“Aww, too bad,” Dick says without a hint of sincerity. “Looks like we’ll have to finish it later.”

He must have planned this. Artemis yanks her backpack over one elbow and hurries away. She does not feel sorry for Jon Snow. Tyrion did not make her laugh that much. Arya is certainly not her favorite. But Sansa is definitely annoying. Therefore, she does not like Game of Thrones.

“See you, Dick.”

“Wait–don’t you have algebra? With Togliari? We can, you know, walk together.”

Artemis shrugs, which is apparently enough agreement for Dick. He falls into step next to her, looking her in the eye every now and then but never quite maintaining solid contact.

“So, how’d you get into advanced algebra? That’s not usually a freshman subject.”

“I studied.” Artemis glares at him and he laughs. “What? There’s no secret. Just hard work.”

Artemis shoves him and he windmills before settling back with a half-skip. “You’re a Gothamite. I’m a Gothamite. There are always secrets.”

“Okay, there’s a couple of tricks. And I’ll even pass them on to you.” He doesn’t wait for any agreement, just launches into a song set to the tune of 'Pop goes the Weasel.’ “X is equal to negative b, plus-or-minus the square root–”

“Is that the quadratic formula?”

“–of B-squared minus four-a-c, all over 2-a!”

Maybe Artemis should stop shoving a fourteen-year-old, but after Dick easily rolls back onto his feet she figures he’s had enough practice. And he deserves it for getting the quadratic formula stuck in her head.

Still in a post-lunch stupor, Artemis dozes lightly through attendance until the teacher calls 'Grayson’ and Dick raises his hand.

Dick–Grayson? Richard Grayson. Bruce Wayne’s kid?

Artemis turns around and waves at him, then holds three fingers up in a W, with what she hopes is an accusing glare. Dick just tilts his head and shrugs. Artemis heads to his desk during classwork and doesn’t even pretend to be doing work.

“You’re Bruce Wayne’s kid?”  
  
“Oh, a W! I thought you meant third chapter or something.”

\- - -

There’s a huge plasma TV in the rec room at Gotham Academy.

From a young age, everyone learned to read or watch the news as often as possible to avoid any hotspots. Or head over to make a name for themselves on either side of the law. Also, there was Bruce Wayne. Having someone unapologetically lurch from scandal to scandal made everyone feel better about themselves. And even if he was kind of a flake, he seems to genuinely like Dick and vice versa, which is more than Artemis can say for her dad.

Most days Artemis stays after school and listens with one ear while she does her homework. She doesn’t have a car or a license and her mom can’t drive. It takes at least an hour for the only public bus running by Gotham Academy to pass her run-down flat, usually more since the driver is never on time. And she doesn’t usually have to work with the team in the middle of the week, so she doesn’t have to worry.

Today, Dick calls Bruce and stays with her. Even better, he pulls up the Game of Thrones pilot so they can finish while they wait. The sound attracts other people who want to watch it, for whatever reason. Gradually, Artemis stops judging people who don’t even care that Dick is fourteen and watching a pirated R-rated series in public because she’s the one who got here with him.

It’s a Gotham rule: You came in, no complainin’.

Also, she kind of likes having people around even if they don’t talk much.

The news jangles against the episode until someone tells them to mute their episode. Dick’s dad is on the news.

Yesterday, Wayne saw Superman rescue people from a bridge in Metropolis. This is almost Gotham news so no one minds when the story replays on Gotham Notice’s afternoon segment. Lois Lane reads off her prompter with almost-casual precision until she mentions Clark left in a huff before finishing the interview (not Lane’s words).

Then, with something approaching emotion, Lane launches a passive-aggressive dig at Wayne being seen in the red-light district by “an anonymous source”. No doubt that is bullshit, because Lane happens to be fucking her fellow reporter.

Artemis looks up as the room goes silent.

“Oh no she didn’t!” someone yells.

“Where’s Grayson?”

Artemis shifts to Dick, squirming in the corner of the booth next to her. “Dick! Are you going to take that? Lois Lame just called your dad a slut because Clark Cunt got pissy!”

Maybe that was too strong. She’s not a clean talker, but Game of Thrones has definitely seeped into her brain. Dick shrinks even further as about forty eyes land on him.

“Yeah, Dick!” A soccer player still in his uniform leans over the booth. “What are you going to do about it?”

“W-what am I supposed to do about it?”

Chill, Artemis tells herself. Not everyone’s a superhero. Also he’s fourteen. Oh god, Artemis called his dad a slut. Whatever, Lane did it first. “Call the station or something.”

“I mean, he’s always in the news for that sort of thing here, so… I don’t get why we should get mad at Lois Lane for doing the same thing.”

“We can call Batman!”

“I’m pretty sure Batman has better things to do than criticize slander. And, well, what if it was…” Dick winces and fights to get the next word out without barfing. “True?”

“It doesn’t matter if it was true,” Artemis tells him. “The point is, it wasn’t even close to important! Lane just tacked it onto the end of real news to get back at your dad for Kent.”

“Hell yeah!” The soccer player doesn’t seem to mind leaning on his stomach over the booth. “Your dad could be making it rain in all the strip clubs ever–” Dick covers his ears and yells multiplication tables. “–But only _we_ get to call him out on that!”

Dick takes his hands off his ears and gives a shaky smile. Artemis pats him on the shoulder and says, “I’m pretty sure Metropolis doesn’t even _have_ a red-light district anyway.”

“Bunch of goody-two-shoes,” someone agrees.

“We should flood the station tonight. Make them pay for trying to mess with one of Gotham’s boys!”

“We like our vengeance hot!”

“Let’s not do anything we’ll regret,” Dick says weakly, as someone else looks up the number for the Daily Planet Show and everyone plugs it into their phones.

\- - -

Her mom is chopping up artichokes to dry for tea by the time Artemis comes home with Dick tagging along. Their official excuse is homework, but really they’re just going to watch more GoT (which Dick pronounces as one word, somehow with capitals). Artemis braces herself for the eternal question of whether Dick wants something to eat.

Paula says that and more, such as Dick is so very thin, and “I thought your father was rich! Doesn’t he feed you?”

Artemis felt like dying. But Dick smiled and actually accepted the offer. That has never happened before. Since Paula was already in the kitchen, she went to town on a couple of baguettes and warmed up some sausage. Now they both have sandwiches, but since Artemis likes hers cold she’s been nursing a glass of pop for fifteen minutes.

“You know what Westeros reminds me of?” Dick says, in-between bites.

She knows. She was thinking the same thing. “Gotham?”

“Gotham.”

“I hear that.” Artemis pokes at her banh mi and finally takes a bite out of it. “You should try it cold.”

“People making kids watch executions, throwing them out the window, slapping them. Killing their direwolves.”

“I like Ned, though.” She secretly wishes her dad was more like him.

Dick says nothing for a second. Then, he ponders, “Ned reminds me of Batman. You know, except for the killing.”

“Yeah, he’s even married to someone called Cat.”

Dick’s laugh turns into a snort. He drinks and coughs a little, then wipes his mouth on a napkin.

Artemis thinks for a second and says, “Bran reminds me of–” In the nick of time, she catches herself before Robin comes out of her mouth. “This one friend I have who’s not afraid of heights.”  
  
“Here’s hoping he doesn’t get thrown out a window.”  
  
As Dick lifts his cup in a fake toast, Artemis winces and looks back at the screen. That scenario is disturbingly possible in their work on the team. She wonders if she can bring it up to Black Canary without looking paranoid and ends up saying, “Yup.”  
  
More silence.

“You remind me of Arya,” Dick says.

Artemis struggles to remain calm. Her bow is out of sight. Even if it was, she could just pass it off as a hobby. It’s not expensive if she’s careful about her equipment. Artemis clears her throat and tries to keep her voice light. “Oh, really? Why on earth would you think that?”

“I mean, you might be a little blunt and stuff… but you know what’s right. And you’re not afraid to say so.”

Artemis refuses to blush. Even though, in Gotham, a compliment on moral character is like saying you look really pretty. Dick is fourteen years old and has a slut for a dad. He probably didn’t mean it that way.

Unless Dick’s weird shyness was actually some form of pining over her.

Then Artemis remembers they just watched brother-sister incest shortly before a boy his age was thrown out of a window, and feels obliged to do at least a page of homework without looking up at the screen.

\- - -

The lawn in the quad is soft and fragrant underneath her knees. For once, Artemis likes sitting on the ground here, which is maybe the first advantage she’s ever noticed for the stupid itchy wool skirt. Artemis starts work on an essay about economics, hoping a frown at the screen will magically make words appear.

Dick watches her, then clears his throat. “Did you ever learn to type right?”

“There’s a right way to type?”

“Yup.” Dick leans over and waves at the keyboard, still keeping a strange little bubble of space between their hands. “Like playing piano. It’ll help you type faster. Put both thumbs on the space bar. Put the other four fingers on the center row. That’s called the homerow. If you have to reach up for numbers or something, go back to it as soon as possible.”

Artemis tries it out, staring at her hands the whole time. Then Dick patiently feeds her more information, and it does make things easier. Even though she doesn’t have the constant rapid-fire key rattling that Dick manages somehow.

“You see those little bumps on the keys? That’s for touch-typing.”

Artemis looks down at her hands. There’s really no way to type without touching the keys. “What’s touch typing?”

“You poor technologically impaired soul.”

Dick takes his school laptop out and flicks a sheet of paper on the keyboard. He slides his hands under the paper, feels for something–the bumps–then turns and leans out of the way so she can see the screen (again, a little farther and stiffer than necessary).

“Okay, watch the screen.”

The paper bounces smoothly over his hands, while Artemis watches familiar poetry appear line by line:

> _Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing;_
> 
> _I look far out into the pregnant night,_
> 
> _Where I can hear a solemn booming gun_
> 
> _And catch the gleaming of a random light,_
> 
> _That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing._

His accuracy, and the fact that he’d typed the verse in thirty seconds flat, has Artemis applaud without sarcasm. At the same time she wonders why Dick didn’t just cover his eyes. Then Artemis remembers that most civilians don’t have blindfolds in their pockets at any given time. Also, she must never tell anyone that she thought about blindfolding a fourteen year old boy.

At this rate she’s never going to meet Dick’s expectations. They are pretty low expectations, which is why she is so bent on achieving them. It does not have anything at all to do with Dick in particular.

(The Gotham equivalent of saying 'This orange dress which I clearly bought yesterday has nothing to do with you saying I look nice in orange, which also happened yesterday’. If Artemis was looking at someone else she would call bullshit.)

\- - -

Barbara, Dick’s other friend, is the one who wants to be a librarian, and somehow that requires a master’s degree. Babs insists that there is more to it than reshelving books and scanning them out. Really, there are secret librarian duties which no one else is supposed to learn.

But even if there aren’t, Babs is definitely smart enough for a Master’s degree. She got through all of the Game of Thrones books over the summer and is the only one of them who is current with the series. She approved of Dick hooking Artemis on it and mentioned something about a finale party, in which she will dress up as Cat. The only option Artemis has is Daenerys because she refuses to be Cersei. Dick is also stuck between Bran and Joffrey.

When Dick pulls out his movie laptop and says Artemis has just reached Baelor, Babs yanks out her phone. “This shall be: 'Friend watches Baelor for first time and other friend watches for third time but without denial or shock.’”

Artemis tries to keep calm out of spite.

But then they get to the part where Joffrey orders execution for Ned instead of exile.

“No.” Artemis clings to Dick’s arm. Beneath the soft layers of his blazer and shirt is astonishingly lean muscle. He isn’t starving, so it’s not bone. And she’s grabbed his upper arm, not his wrist. He must work out a lot for such a skinny little thing. “ _No!_ Someone’s going to save him, right?!”

“No!” Dick wails, and she isn’t sure if this is an answer.

“Batman’s saved people with less time! This isn’t _right!_ ”

“JOFFREY YOU ASS!”

“NED HASN’T TOLD JON ABOUT HIS MOM YET!”

“AGH, I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!”

The credits roll and Artemis ends up burying her face in Dick’s shoulder. He might be shorter than her, but she has no energy to sit up straight, so things work out fine. Barbara holds her sides laughing and Artemis brandishes a fist at her. Stupid librarian. “Stop filming us! It’s over!”

“Oh god, you’re holding each other!” Babs holds her phone closer, probably zooming in for more insult to injury. “You two are going to be YouTube famous!”

“I hate you!”

“Are you crying, Artemis?”

“I hate everyone!”

“Don’t hate everyone, Art,” Dick tells her.

“Don’t tell me how to feel!” This would have been more effective if Artemis wasn’t still clutching him.

“No–if you must hate, then hate Joffrey!” Then Dick collapses against her shoulder, with loud sobbing and yells of “Vengeance!”

“Joffrey! That little shit will pay!”

For once, his hair isn’t gelled. Must have run out. When Artemis’ hand brushes against the nape of his neck there’s nothing between them. His skin is colder than she expected from such a dramatic person, or even a regular person. Strange. Somehow, knowing that makes Artemis feel self-conscious, even though it was an accident.

\- - -

Despite their exploited reactions to Baelor, which is apparently YouTube famous, Dick’s weird phobia of touching Artemis hasn’t eased up. That would be fine if it was one of his regular quirks, but he acts normally around everyone else. It’s like Dick used up all his affinity for close contact in that first not-really-a-meeting.

Artemis slides next to Babs at lunch. “Hey Babs.”  
  
“Hey.” Babs looks up and smiles. “What’s up, my dramatic friend?”  
  
Artemis has no idea how to gently ease around a subject without letting people on to what she’s asking, which is why she just gets it out in one shot. “Has Dick been acting kind of weird? Sort of keeping people at arm’s length?”

Babs frowns. “Are you the person?”  
  
“Yeah.”

“Hm.” She stares down at her calculus and erases a line. “I don’t know. If it’s just you–and I’m not saying this is the reason, just… It might be Dick knows something that you don’t know he knows.” Artemis tries to wrap her head around it. “He does that sometimes.”  
  
And here Artemis was, thinking he had a crush on her.

Deep, deep inside Artemis’ brain, a voice asks why she thought of that first.

“Don’t freak out. It’s probably not big.”

Artemis shrugs. Inwardly she is freaking out because how they first met is playing in their head. “I’m not. I’m a Gothamite. Knowing someone knows something about you? I eat those secrets for breakfast.”

_He knows! He knows that I am on the team working for the Justice League! He knows that my dad is a bad man! He knows both!_

“–temis!”

“What?!” Artemis probably yelled that a little louder than necessary.

“Sit down.” Babs kicks a chair out from under the table. This has the added benefit of showing off her nice three-inch heels, and as she wants to be a librarian Artemis can’t blame her. Although she does wonder how Babs doesn’t get caught, even though she only wears them at lunch. “You’re freaking out on the inside. Let’s do some math. Are you in calc?”

“Algebra. Advanced.” Artemis numbly roots around in her backpack for the textbook and flips to the middle. Babs walks her through linear equations before the boy of the day arrives.

“Hey guys!” Dick looks at their binders and gasps. “I am betrayed! You’re throwing a math party without me!”

“Only someone who sings the quadratic formula would call this a party,” Artemis snaps.

Dick frowns. “Is something wrong?”

“No…” Artemis scribbles _'How do I find out what he knows?_ ’ and passes it to Babs. “Babs, I’m on parabolas now. How do I graph them?”

Dick makes a strangled sound that resembles “I know hooooooow” and moves to peer at it, momentarily stopping Artemis’ heart.

But Babs raps him over the knuckles with her pencil and yanks the notebook over in a flash. “The lady asked me. Show off.” She does a remarkable job of pretending she is looking at an equation and scribbles something. “You’ve read your book, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. First you need to figure out if it’s horizontal or vertical.”

Babs passes it back.

_'Luck. But I’ll talk to you more later.’_

Artemis gives up and starts doing some damn equations. “You know what, I’ll do the graphing part some other time.”

\- - -

Artemis ignores the wet floor sign, pretty much like everyone else. It rains so much in Gotham autumns that no one even cares. A chorus of squeaking shoes in the morning sets her teeth on edge, and she swears in Vietnamese when she sees all the mud in the halls and the floor will have to be mopped up again.

Dick disappears and doesn’t show up for algebra. Artemis saw him that morning, but not at lunch. Secretly texting Babs gets an 'I don’t know, what’s wrong?’ Artemis thinks the worst and tries to hope for the best.

Artemis steps outside to see her classmates haven’t gone anywhere but huddle around someone on the ground. Artemis pushes through and it is Dick, lying on the ground with a smear of blood trailing from the lockers to his head.

“Dick? Dick! Are you okay?” Artemis sprints over and kneels. But before she touches him, she closes her eyes and takes a deep, deep breath. One of the first things Batman taught them was to keep calm and that meant breathing.

It works. When she opens her eyes, she feels less like panicking and studies Dick carefully. Dick is also breathing. His unconsciousness is definitely a concussion. There don’t seem to be any broken bones, but feeling for them would look suspicious.

Mr. Togliari says, “Artemis, don’t move him,” with a first aid kit already in hand. His aide calls 911 without asking. Rich or poor, they are still in Gotham.

Bruce Wayne sweeps through the hall with a frantic edge to his usual featherheadedness. “Hello–oh, no, is that Dick? There’s so much blood! What happened? Does anyone know?”

Artemis swallows what she wants to say–that judging from the wet floor and the blood on the locker, Dick slipped and hit his head. Even if it’s not an amazing deduction, she is supposed to be a student, not a detective in training.

Bruce Wayne in the flesh is surprisingly tall. Even hovering in a sort of protective half-crouch, his shadow covers pretty much all of Dick.

Everyone jumps when Dick groans. “Batman?”

Laughing a little too hard, Wayne says, “Sorry, it’s just Bruce. Dick, look at you! You fell and hit your head. I bet you were late and ran on this wet floor.” In the split second when Artemis looks at Wayne, he doesn’t seem to be smiling at all. Artemis gets up and brushes her knees, but the floor is dry now. Useless floor.

“Mr. Wayne, the paramedics are here.”

He steps aside reluctantly and his gaze falls on Artemis. The smile flashes like an opened door. “I remember you. Ariel?”

“Artemis,” she corrects him.

“That’s right. I sent you a scholarship.” When the stretcher comes in, his attention lifts instantly. But he gives Artemis a pat on the shoulder before following Dick and the paramedics. “I’m sure you’re working very hard to keep it.”

Artemis has to take this with a grain of salt because Wayne did get her name wrong. But even though Artemis wouldn’t have trusted him with a fake potted plant before now, he seems to really care about Dick.

She turns a corner and kicks at the jackass wet floor sign. "How could _anyone_ see you around this corner?”

\- - -

Babs gathers up all of Dick’s friends to visit him in the hospital. He has a lot of friends and they just fit into a stretch limo Wayne offered after school. The huge Tupperware of beef pho Artemis’ mom made for Dick (who will probably get “even skinnier on that hospital food”) sloshes on her knees. On the way to the hospital, they pass through Chinatown and Artemis taps on the window.

“Excuse me, Mr. Pennyworth?”

“Yes, Miss Crock.”

“Can we make a stop here? I forgot something.”

“Of course, Miss Crock.”

“Really?” Bette says. “I think that will feed Dick for a week. What else could you possibly give him?”

“Not for Dick, for the nurses in case they won’t let me bring it in.”  
  
The receptionist singles out her soup amid all the bouquets. Artemis tells everyone to go on without her and reluctantly offers the box of dim sum. The receptionist opens it and scrutinizes the contents, like a box of chocolates with no label for the coconut filled ones.

“Are there sesame seed rolls?”

“On the bottom,” Artemis snaps.

The receptionist waves her on. “Go on, honey.”

\- - -

Artemis has to go back because she forgot the room number. When she gets there, everyone else is already done depositing their stuff on Dick’s table. The soup is cold.

Artemis goes in alone, plops the soup down next to some lilies and hopes Dick isn’t too drugged up. “Hey, Dick.”

“Artemis?”

“You got a haircut, rich boy.” There are maybe eight stitches standing out against Dick’s new buzzcut. “I brought soup.” There’s a microwave in the corner, so that’s okay.

“You rescued me again.”

He might be a little drugged up. “How did I rescue you?”

“You got my dad. He said something about you.”

“Oh, right.” There’s no point in arguing with the logic of someone on painkillers.

“And then you saved me before. Back when you were working alone. With… arrow. I found you at school.”

_Oh._

This is what Dick knows that she doesn’t. Artemis wracks her brains but she doesn’t remember Dick at all. A skinny fourteen-year-old boy with black hair, those come a dime a dozen in Gotham. Or anywhere, really. Dick has blue eyes, but she can’t really see those from a distance.

Now Artemis feels like shit. She could lie and say she remembers him now… but really, she spent like three months treating him like a stranger and it’s not like she can fix that.

“I’m sorry. I forgot.”

Silence.

“Don’t worry,” Dick slurs. “I won’t tell anyone.”

\- - -

Artemis is not stupid. It is significant that on the same week Dick has to stay home with a concussion, Robin also disappears from Batman’s side. Maybe that’s what Dick was talking about, when Robin was with Kid Flash fighting Amazo.

But Artemis keeps her thoughts to herself because she’s the only one with those clues, and basic etiquette for superheroes is not to go blabbing it to everyone else. At least, not if you’re on good terms. If you’re on bad terms, you can use it as blackmail.

Then Robin shows up after a few days with a completely unchanged and full head of hair.

The part of her which always thinks of Batman whenever Robin shows up says: _It could be a wig. If I had a secret identity to keep up and no shapeshifting powers like M'gann, a wig would be handy in case something happened to my hair. But how do I find out if it’s a wig?_

New goal: Mess up Robin’s hair.

Artemis walks up and ruffles his hair. But gently, in case she’s right. “You’re late, Boy Wonder.” If it is a wig, it feels unsettlingly real. Even has that slight roughness. And it doesn’t budge, and she can’t feel the mesh that comes with wigs, or any bandage-y lumps.

Now everyone’s staring at her.

“I missed you.” No. Why did she say that? Everyone is staring harder! “–because I, unlike you, have been working extra hard in training and I could probably kick your ass now.”

Either Robin is a different person from Dick, or Batman just trained him to be crazy because he doesn’t sit out the training. And when Artemis reluctantly stops pulling her punches after Black Canary singles her out, Robin doesn’t complain even after he comes back up from the ground with a bloody nose.

Artemis needs more proof.

Black Canary calls a time out and pulls Robin into the med ward. Artemis leaves her bow under a bench, heads to the showers, then doubles back to get her bow but really goes to the computer. She pulls up a map of the mountain and heads through the air vents over the med ward.

Black Canary has left the room and Robin, wonder of all wonders, has taken his mask off while he leans forward and holds his nose. Unfortunately this means his face is out of view.

Artemis takes an arrow out of her quiver, makes sure she is safe in the darkness, and reaches as far forward as possible to tap the grate.

Robin looks up and…

Artemis pulls Ollie’s field binoculars off her belt to make sure. But there is no mistaking it.

Robin’s eyes are _brown_.


	2. Semester Two (Spring): Trà atisô

Over the winter break the team gets called in for intensive training. Artemis spends a lot of it obsessing over Robin, Dick, and whether they are the same person. There are three options that could explain why Robin has brown eyes but Dick has blue.

The first is that Robin and Dick are not the same person.

The second is that Robin and Dick are the same person. Covering up a new buzz cut with a wig is common sense. Having Dick show up to practice where he could easily exacerbate a head injury is a little harsh, even though the floor is padded. Wearing colored contacts under a mask which, to Artemis’ knowledge, has never come off? Paranoid. But paranoid enough for Batman?

No.

If Artemis really wanted to think like Batman, she’d think that Dick is Robin… and someone else is _also Robin_. They would switch off whenever the other was too injured, or had their cover compromised, on the off-chance that someone does what Artemis did and puts things together, and Robin needs to be in the same place as Dick. The problem is, Artemis doesn’t like thinking like Batman. What happens if one of the Robins dies? Also, she’d have to figure out how the other Robin got past security. And who the other Robin was.

Is.

Might be.

Time to forget about it.

Artemis trains her ass off.

In one session, Artemis finally does what she thought she’d never do twice in a row: knock Robin over. Yes, she did it the first time, but Robin is young and light and a little overenthusiastic sometimes. Doing it once could be luck. Doing it twice actually means she’s improved. (Or that it’s Dick and he’s compromised already. Or that this is not the Robin she knows, but she’s trying to forget about that, after all.)

After one not-very-sportsmanlike victory whoop, Artemis helps Robin up before Black Canary can dock points. Her fingers slide across the hem of his standing collar, just where the nape of his neck would be.

She has held Robin up, snatched his arm on the run from grenades, given him pats on the back. All of them in uniform, except for that one time in his civilian clothes. They had all covered his neck. Would Artemis know if this was Dick, just from a single brush of her hand across his neck? (Batman probably could.)

Robin smiles at her, dizzily. She knows that, underneath the mask, he is making eye contact. A bubble of mutual silence forms between them and the other sparring pairs.

Artemis yanks her hand out from beneath Robin’s neck and grabs his elbow instead. “You okay?”

“Dandy.” He sweeps both legs into the air and rolls onto his feet.

\- - -

The time has not yet come for Artemis to be certain. But one thing she knows for sure is that she is never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to ask Dick if he’s Robin. He’s not supposed to tell her. If she lets on that she’s starting to suspect, he might tighten up even more. Worse, Batman might find out.

Goal of the day: Text Dick. See if Robin makes a suspicious excuse to leave right before a timely response, or doesn’t answer until he is finished with whatever he’s doing.

Artemis waits until she’s the odd one out in paired sparring. When Black Canary isn’t looking, Artemis pulls out her phone and texts, ‘Hey, Dick, you want to hang out later today?’ And out of the corner of her vision she watches Robin.

Her phone buzzes. Which would be fine if Robin had actually made a suspicious excuse to leave. But he’s right there, cartwheeling away from Kaldur’s attacks. Finally, she looks down to see 'Sorry, Artemis, I can’t. Unless you’re in Miami right now.’ Artemis texts something appropriately laid-back and noncommittal, then scowls at her phone until Black Canary tells her that having her civilian phone is a liability and she is only to use her team phone.

Artemis changes into civvies, stomps back to the zeta beam, and all the way home. She doesn’t even go through the door, she just jimmies open her window and drops her phone under her bed.

\- - -

The break passes with absolutely no progress on the Robin-is-Dick question. Artemis hides her grumpiness underneath the back to school blues, waves half-heartedly to all of her friends, and tries to recenter her focus on school.  
  
Batman suggests that they take a physical class to make warming up easier in the so-called spring semester. Artemis needs a physical class anyway.

Track team sounds boring, more Wally’s thing. Swim team, she admits that could be useful after how many times she’s almost drowned. But she swims okay, and on the team they’ve got Aqualad and rebreathers, so she’s lazy. The team sports are full of boys and need crosstraining for full physical benefit anyway.

She signs up for the morning ballet class, so she has time to recover if she gets called to the team. Also, she won’t have to worry about stumbling around with math in her head. And she knows French. But she actually has to fill out a form to get the school-issued blue leotard and pink tights. She doesn’t know why, they have her uniform size.

In either case, there are more girls than boys. And one of the boys is Dick, who shows the fuck off by leaping over.  
  
“You’re late!”  
  
Artemis looks at the clock. “I have five minutes.”  
  
“On time is fifteen minutes early.”  
  
Artemis yanks off her jeans and tank top and crams her hair into a bun. Indra walks up and asks if Artemis has taken dance class before because she has such a nice body. That’s a little weird. But then everyone else begins shedding their sweat pants and suddenly Artemis’ lean build doesn’t seem out of place. Dick starts doing crunches at a suspiciously even pace, and Artemis begins to suspect.

Then everyone else starts doing crunches. Including their middle-aged teacher, Vidya Unnitthaan. For moral support.

Does Dick plan these things? Is he trying to gaslight her?

Artemis has done a grand total of one stretch, her hamstrings, when the door opens. Vidya claps her hands and welcomes the accompanist, because of course Gotham Academy would have an actual pianist for their dance classes.

Vidya insists on a first-name basis with students because “We are all wearing skin-tight spandex here. We don’t need formalities until we get to the stage.” Artemis laughs for a very different reason than everyone else. Except maybe Dick. But she’s not sure on that.

“Okay, dancers! Bring out the barres.”

Artemis refuses to think that Dick might have had a point in coming fifteen minutes early.

“We’re warming up the demi-pointe.”

Half-point… Half-point what?

“Beginners, watch me. We face the barre with lifted posture, place the hands–” Vidya takes a breath and her arms flow onto the barre like silk scarves. Artemis has never seen anyone who warranted that sort of description before. “Then lift our heels into a demi-pointe, lift our knees into a full pointe, back to demi, and down. Switch to the other foot. Then lift both heels and lower the left heel, four times on each side.”

It looks simple enough. The music plays for a measure before they place their hands.

\- - -

Artemis’ feet hurt after two minutes of warming up her toes and ankles. Once that’s done, they begin excruciatingly detailed work on calves with tendu (steps), plies (bends) and releves (rises). Not that Artemis’ knowledge of French was any help in knowing the context of those steps or whether she was using proper technique. She would have been better off not knowing anything at all. Artemis wonders if she’s going to survive beyond the knees.

As the exercises go on, the teacher wanders between the barres and gives a compliment or a correction. Gradually Artemis deduces that the compliments go to beginners and advanced students are the ones getting corrections. That is surprisingly soft-hearted. Artemis listens to the advanced students and adjusts her posture accordingly.

“You have a lovely carriage to the arms,” Vidya tells Artemis. Against her will, Artemis smiles. “There you go. Relax! You’re dancing, not fighting, or whatever you do to work out those muscles. What do you do?”

“Archery,” Artemis says.

“Ah, that works the back! Port de bras is all in the back.”

Artemis looks into the mirror to see what happens with Dick.

“Dick, shoulders down–my goodness, what did you do to your head?!”

“I ran on a wet floor!” Dick laughs. “Concussion and eight stitches. It’s okay now.”

“That explains the haircut.” Vidya pats his shoulder. Then she lowers his chin, straightens his back, and fiddles with his outstretched arm. “Now keep it that way.”

\- - -

They remove the barres and do center exercises, actually moving across the floor. Just when Artemis feels like she’s gotten a handle on things, Vidya picks on her. Deep down, Artemis is flattered. “Artemis. Don’t be so boring.”

“I’m just trying to do everything right,” Artemis grumbles. “What more do you want?”

“It’s not enough to do everything right. Once you’re consistent on technique, you’ve got to put some feeling into it. Experiment! Think of something else as you dance.” Vidya casts an eye around and then points to Dick in the left corner. “Here. Dick, do something. Artemis, watch him and try to guess what he’s thinking about.”

He jumps, stretching into a full split in the air, then pirouettes with one leg out and ends facing Vidya and Artemis. Everyone applauds. Except for Artemis, who grumbles, “Showing the fuck off.”

Dick grins, puts his hand over his heart, and sweeps his palm back out towards her. Artemis has no idea what that means, but everyone laughs and the teacher translates, “That was ballet for 'he loves you too’. But, seriously, what do you think was on his mind?”

Detective work. They were all jumps. Dick is comfortable with one foot or none on the ground. The first thing he does is mess around with jumps after class. He hasn’t done outright gymnastics, or else Artemis would really suspect something. Even if he is rough around the edges (it is easier for the skilled to act unskilled, Artemis knows. She has missed on purpose before), he steps lightly and hovers weightless in the air. It makes Dick bad at turns because he picks up his heel too fast, or so the teacher has said more than once. It looks like…

“Flying,” Artemis says. Just in case he’s Robin.

His face cracks for a moment, then the grin comes back more brightly than ever. “How’d you guess?”

On the inside Artemis feels like dancing because she may have gotten one over on a student of the greatest detective in the world. But Batman must never know.

“Now you think of something,” Vidya tells her. “Do whatever you like.”

The feel of everyone’s eyes on her becomes suffocating and Artemis crosses her arms. “Um, I don’t have any experience whatsoever dancing–”

“It’s okay. You’re good with technique already, don’t worry about it. Move while you think. Do something simple. Something you feel comfortable with.”

Artemis dips forward into a waltz, which is something she’s had trouble with. It shifts from foot to foot, makes her think of her sister. Technically it needs a partner, which also makes her think of her sister.

Where Dick is a bird (Robin or not), Jade has a sly, boneless grace, like a snake or a cat. Something Artemis wouldn’t trust with a fake potted plant, but it sure is nice to watch her move.

Jade never fails to change her mind, and that means turns to avoid obstacles, backbends to shimmy under weapons. Or out the window. Then Artemis kicks out at the air in front of her, and whips her arms down into the resting position.

“After all that control, you lost it getting angry at something,” Vidya says. “It’s only eight in the morning. Did you have a bad dream?”

\- - -

Artemis heads into the locker room and hears crying. Doesn’t sound like a girl crying, it’s unsteady hiccuping gasps instead of sobs. But then, if she were a guy and really couldn’t hold it in, the girl’s locker room would be a pretty good place to hide. She edges around a few corners and finds Dick crouched on a bench, wiping his eyes with his towel.

“Dick?” Artemis drops her bag. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

A plethora of worst-case scenarios runs through her head. His concussion has gotten worse. Batman found out that Artemis is too close to the truth and wants to punish her accordingly. She does not want to think about what Batman might do that isn’t killing or physical torture. He is the greatest detective in the world.

“It’s just that my parents were trapeze artists.” That… has very little to do with Batman, or his concussion, or anything Artemis was thinking about. “The Flying Graysons. They died in an accident.”

“Oh, no.” Now she feels like a bitch. “God, if I’d known, I wouldn’t have said that about…” Actually, she might have heard about it and forgot, because when would a poor kid at a poor school ever run into Bruce Wayne’s son? Dick doesn’t need to know that, though. “Dick, I’m sorry.”

“They died doing what they loved. It wasn’t a bad way, just…” He turns away and rubs his eyes. “Just a bad time.”

That sounds like something Robin would say. And something about the trapeze nags at her… But now is not the time for suspicion. Artemis sits down on the bench and hugs Dick.

One of the guy dancers, Mauricio, walks past and then doubletakes. “Artemis, what are you doing in the boy’s lockers?”

“Excuse me for having a fucking moment here,” Artemis says. “And these aren’t the boy’s lockers.”

“Actually they are,” Dick sniffles over her shoulder.

Artemis looks around. No wonder it’s so empty right after a class. There are ten boys. “Shit.”

“If you made Dick cry, bitch, I will hit you.”  
  
“No, she didn’t,” Dick says.

“Yeah, sort of,” Artemis says at the same time.

“Aww, you two are so cute.” Mauricio watches them for a moment, fondly. “And kind of sad at the same time.”

“Fine!” Artemis flips him off, grabs her bag and storms away. “Leaving! Are you happy now!”

“Ay, ella es muy luchadora!”

Artemis stops without making a sound to hear what Dick says next, which turns out to be: “I have no idea what you just said.”

“She’s such a bitch. But she knows it, so this doesn’t count as talking behind her back. And hell, she’s funny. But why do you like her?”

Wait.

Barring the fact that Dick might be bluffing, Artemis doesn’t know for sure that Robin can speak Spanish. She just assumed he could, because once Bane escaped from prison and Batman accompanied them for the retrieval. On the flight back to prison, Bane said something to Batman, like a proverb, and they ended up having this long, involved, perfectly civil conversation entirely in Spanish. It gave Artemis really conflicting feelings about Batman that she still doesn’t like dwelling on.

Artemis rips her hairtie off and yells, “I can hear you, Maurasshole!” This causes said asshole to dissolve into laughter.

“Hey, as long as you can hear us,” Dick calls. “Are we watching GoT later?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Aww, shit, have you gotten to season two yet?”

\- - -

That thing about unwittingly reminding Dick of his dead parents makes Artemis feel so guilty that she takes Dick in through the front door and maneuvers their schedule so that they’re downstairs doing homework at six. That is when Paula rolls into the kitchen and starts cooking dinner. Which is subsequently when Paula asks Dick to stay for dinner.

Dick doesn’t seem to mind being manipulated into staying for an apology dinner Artemis didn’t really elaborate on, and he uses the landline instead of his cell phone to call. Then while Paula mixes rice batter for Vietnamese crepes, Dick hovers in the kitchen and asks if he can help.

“Oh, you’re so nice. Rich children never help in the kitchen. But I don’t need help. What can I do like this except cook?” Paula brandishes her chopsticks at Dick. “You know how bad prison food is? I do.”

“MOM!” If he’s Robin, he can use her name and information to figure out everything. And if he’s not Robin, Artemis still feels like dying because of the rich children remark.

“Artemis, cut the duck.” Artemis yanks out half a duck and slams it onto the cutting board, deboning it quickly and then chopping rough stringy fingers of the meat. “Before prison, nobody said anything about my food. There’s only two things you can do in prison, exercise and read. I couldn’t exercise, so I read. Now I can cook anything.”

As halfheartedly as she dares, Artemis drizzles lemon over the duck and adds soy sauce.

“More sauce, Artemis,” Paula says without turning around. “Don’t be scared of the meat. I might have been a bad cook before now, but I used to chop off duck heads myself.”

Dick politely refrains from asking what Artemis’ mom was in prison for, or reacting at all to the chopping heads off ducks comment. Artemis spoons the pan-fried duck onto the finished crepes. Paula adds a handful of sprouts, sausage, and chopped mint to each one before sealing them. Then Artemis sets a dessert plate with mustard leaves at each place on the table.

The lack of utensils except for a steak knife clearly puzzles Dick.

“Artemis, teach him how to eat it.”

Artemis sighs. “Right, Dick.” She stacks shredded chili and carrot on a mustard leaf in her left hand, then cuts off a corner of her crepe and wraps it in the mustard leaf. “There, that’s how you eat a Vietnamese crepe.”

He grins and follows the motions. “I just learned something new.”

As Dick chomps down with his usual vivacity, making small talk with Paula between bites, Artemis watches and wonders: If Dick is Robin, which personality would be real? His wholesome, harmless, slightly bewildered, optimistic rich-boy-with-a-sad-past routine? Or Robin’s uber-confidence as the experienced, all-knowing sidekick? If Robin ever bluffed, would she be able to call it?

\- - -

Artemis’ birthday falls on a Wednesday. Just her luck. Even if she got to stay home from school and have a party, very few of her friends would be allowed, so that pushes a party to Friday night. However, there are two bottles of 33 from the last time her mom’s friends came over. Artemis yanks both of them and nurses one as she finishes the rough draft of her English paper.

Paula swears from the kitchen. “Artemis! Did you take the last beer?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m not going out though!”

“Why didn’t you throw out the case?”

“It’s my birthday, Mom!”

“You still should have thrown out the case! I did not bring you up that way!”

“Sorry, I’ll do it next time.” The sound of pots and pans has Artemis look up. It’s only five-thirty. “Do you need help, Mom?”

“No, you are already drunk. And it’s just corn pudding.” Artemis smiles. Then a few drawers are thrown open in a hurry. Not finding what she’s looking for, Paula yells, “Cho de! Artemis!”

“Xin loi!” Artemis yells. She hopes her mom wasn’t looking for the rice cakes. Artemis ate those too.

“No, we need lemongrass for the tep rang! Go get some!” Artemis sighs and pulls on her jacket. “And make sure it’s good!”

\- - -

Artemis calls her mom, then deposits the lemongrass on the counter. Her beer upstairs is lukewarm by now, but it’s so cheap it probably makes no difference. She stays in the kitchen and washes the pots. Her birthday dinner is stir-fried prawns with corn pudding as dessert.

She doesn’t even feel like doing homework, so she flips her laptop open and listens to music.

“Artemis!”  
  
She doesn’t want to say she screamed, but she did at seeing the pale face in the window. Then those horrible visions of her mom getting stuck in that rusted metal deathtrap of an elevator mingle with Dick falling off the fire escape and busting his head open on the concrete alley ground.

“Dick! Are you crazy!”  
  
“No, I just wanted to get something back to you.” Dick wobbles, head no longer bandaged. His hair is in the awkward phase, still struggling valiantly to reach its former length. A strained sound comes out of Artemis’ mouth while she grabs his shirt. Then Dick looks down and quips, “Don’t throw me out the window.”  
  
Artemis coils both arms around his skinny fourteen-year-old chest and drags him in. Dick flails against her all the way onto the floor and their ankles snarl into a knot.  
  
“Don’t climb up to the window! You’ve already had a concussion, you idiot!” Artemis yanks her legs free and crosses her arms. “How did you do this without my mom seeing you?”

Robin could do it, a voice whispers.

“Uh, I didn’t really think about that…” Dick looks at the door and lowers his voice. “She might have heard me.”

“Artemis?” At the sound of her mom’s voice, Artemis yanks her blanket over Dick, then flips some textbooks and her laptop onto the floor in a suitably chaotic manner. One of them happens to land on Dick’s arm, and a muffled sound comes out from under the blanket before Artemis shushes him. “Artemis, what was that noise?”

“Nothing, I just fell off the bed.”

Paula opens the door, looks at the mess, and frowns. Artemis prays to no god in particular that Dick remains still and his leg poking out is not too noticeable. Paula puts her hands on her hips. “Did you break your laptop?”

Artemis picks it up and presses a few keys, then puts it back down without looking at the screen. “Nope, not broken.”

“Oh, that’s fine then. But be more careful next time! You know the school gave that to you.” She wheels off sedately once her motherly lecture is acknowledged, and Artemis sighs, closing the door behind her.

“Okay, Dick. I never lent you anything. What’s up?”

“Actually, you dropped this at school.”

Dick holds out a small pile of leather tubes and cording–her archery glove. That’s where it went.

To be entirely honest, Artemis has built up enough calluses to not need an archery glove. She just wears it at the range to keep people from asking why a teenager would use her bow and arrow so regularly. Artemis takes the glove from Dick and instantly notices the leather is clean, new, and soft.

“This isn’t mine.”

“Yeah, the old one landed in a puddle, so I looked at the tag and got a new one for you.”

It fits just like… well, her old glove. “You didn’t have to do that. I was going to get a new one anyway. It costs like five bucks.” Without shipping. It’s not lying if she–why is she lying about the price to a rich kid? Oh, right, because he always hangs out at her house. Not that Artemis minds. She doesn’t like leaving her mom alone.

“It wouldn’t be a gift if I was required to give it.” Now, that was suspiciously Robin-like. Artemis looks up and narrows her eyes at him. Dick quavers. “What?”

Quick. Find another reason to be suspicious. “Why’d you do this?”  
  
“Sorry, I just…” He edges back towards the window. “Wanted to be nice…”

Okay, even if he was just trying to throw Artemis off his track, she feels really bad. Calling a foul on Dick for turning on the puppy dog eyes when she’d just cranked up her paranoid bitchiness would be really hypocritical. And if there’s one thing Gothamites hate, it’s a hypocrite.

“No, don’t be sorry. I just don’t… I get a lot of gifts from people who aren’t family, you know?” Even if they are family, it’s not a guarantee that she’ll like them. Or the gifts. “Don’t trust gifts from Gothamites…”

Dick keeps an eye on her, until Artemis gets the idea to find her archery things and tuck the glove into a pocket of her case. It has a cord tie, not a velcro strap like Artemis’ usual brand, and she doesn’t want to fumble around with the knot right now.

Finally, Dick relaxes. “Technically it’s 'Don’t trust Gothamites bearing gifts.’ If you were going off the original Iliad.”

Remembering to tone down her suspicion, Artemis rolls her eyes. “Show off. But thanks for the glove.” She waves at Jade’s old bed. “You might as well sit down, unless you have other gifts to give in the middle of the night.” She looks around at the mess she made, sighs, and starts cleaning up.

“How long have you been an archer?” Dick sits on the edge of Jade’s bed and keeps his voice down.

“A few years.”

Dick looks around as if he can see through the walls and still isn’t finding what he’s looking for. “Whose bed is this? I’ve only ever seen you and your mom.”

“It’s my sister’s old bed.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know,” Artemis says. “Working. She left a few years ago.”

A silence hangs over them as Dick’s gaze drops to his knees. He still doesn’t ask about her past. Of course, if he’s Robin, he would be able to find out after her mother went and dropped the bomb. But Artemis has to appreciate his silence for whatever it’s worth. Artemis takes another sip of her 33 and Dick gladly takes the opportunity to change the subject.

“You’re drinking alone on a Wednesday? Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Yeah, it’s my birthday. Seventeen. Close enough.”

“Oh, man, why didn’t you tell me?”

“'Cause the party’s on Friday. Nobody’s free _tonight_ , rich boy. I’m just drinking now 'cause… why not?”

“Cool.” Dick catches sight of the other bottle and reaches. “Hey, can I–”  
  
“That’s empty.” Artemis snatches it away and drops it with a 'clink!’ into the trash, clutching her new bottle close. “I preemptively drank that in case a certain, really underage person suddenly appeared.”

“How’d you get those?”

“I have my ways,” Artemis says mysteriously. Dick waits. “Mom keeps a couple bottles in the fridge whenever her friends come over. She’s okay with it as long as I stay in a house.”

“Your mom is awesome,” Dick says. “So I got the next GoT episode and–” As he takes his laptop out of a thin black satchel, Artemis is struck by how skinny his hands are, like pretty much the rest of him except for his face. She can see tendons moving and yeah, it turns out he is at least a dancer with acrobat roots, but… “–are you staring at, Artemis?”

“Oh, god, nothing.” Artemis shakes her head. “Dirty thoughts. I’m sorry. You should leave before they find their way out of my head. I don’t want to corrupt you.”

“Corruption implies that something which was innocent was made not innocent by something bad.” Artemis stares at him and the Robin-like definition. “There’s nothing inherently bad about anything. Or so my dad tells me.” Now her staring isn’t fake. “And, well, isn’t it kind of hypocritical, saying I’m too young to hear about certain stuff when you’re drinking certain stuff right in front of me?”

Hypocrite? Artemis bristles. “It’s different for me because I’ve gone through puberty!”

Dick flinches.

“Wait. Dick, I didn’t mean–”

“The first thing you bring up is always my age. If you aren’t comfortable with it, why didn’t you just say so?”

“Because I don’t tell people when I’m not comfortable!”

“Why? That’s like the first thing people need to know!”

“Not here!” Artemis lowers her voice.

“But this is your house–”

“No, I meant–not _here_ , not in the fucking, the… North Gotham projects!” Now Artemis just can’t control her voice. “Fear in the slums is weakness! Why do you think we hate Scarecrow so much? He’s not even a good fighter and he still, god–”

“I think I’ll come back when you’re not drunk.” And Dick climbs back out the window without another word.

“Wait, Dick–don’t die! I’m not drunk!”

Artemis’ mom wheels past and calls through the closed door. “Yes you are, Artemis. I know I left two bottles in the fridge.” Then Paula opens the door and comes in with another bottle. “Lucky I hid this one where I knew you wouldn’t find it.”

Artemis grabs her phone and flips it open behind her back, then throws it onto her bed. “I was talking to Dick on the phone.”

“First rule of drinking: Don’t talk to anyone who isn’t drunk too. Even on the phone.” Paula cracks the cap off with the edge of her wheel rim and drinks. “Go on, finish that bottle. I’m not going to tell on you.”

Against her will, Artemis feels tears trickling down her face. “Mom, why do you let me drink when I’m underage?”  
  
“You think drinking got me in this chair?” Paula tips her bottle up. “I never drank before a job. I met your father when I was drunk, but I was sober when I married him. So drinking was not an excuse for the bad decisions I made. Why should I keep you away from it? It doesn’t make sense. Besides, if you don’t get used to drinking you’re going to embarrass yourself.”

“I already did.” Artemis drinks. Her sorrows are a little bit fainter. “Dick… got really mad at me.”

“Oh, Artemis.” Paula wheels over to the bed and rubs Artemis’ back between the shoulder blades. “You’re scared of a little boy? You go out to fight bad men like your father all the time.”

“Not scared,” Artemis sobs.

“What? You’re a weepy drunk? Where did you get that?” Paula sighs and nurses her beer.

Artemis wallows in pity as she downs some more booze.

“When I was working,” Paula says. “The easiest way to get someone’s secret identity was to mess with their drinks. We went through a lot of vodka. You know why?”

“No,” Artemis says at once. “And I don’t want to know,”  
  
“But you need to. Now that you’re a hero, you might be on the other end of this. We used vodka because it looked like water. Superheroes are always designated drivers. Good bars don’t sell bottled water, so it’s easy to fix.”

Artemis refuses to recall that Batman told them to abstain and 'volunteer to be the d.d.’ was first on the list of reasons. The second was 'ginger ale.’

“Aha, see? I know what they’ve been telling you and I don’t even go to your lessons.” Paula ignores Artemis’ groan. “That’s why nobody on either side likes a traitor. Best friends make the worst enemies.”

“Why are you telling me now? I don’t know if I’m going to remember this.”  
  
“Aiyuuuuuh!” Paula smacks her on the wrist. “Two beers and you think you won’t remember anything? You _drank_ the bottles! You didn’t get hit in the head with them. If you want passwords, then yes, stay away. But for everything else, as long as you don’t pass out, you will remember the important things.”

“That’s even worse,” Artemis moans.

“Really? What did you say to Dick?”

Artemis covers her face with her arm. “Nothing!”

“Why are you so sensitive, then? Do you like him?” Artemis flops onto her bed and rolls over to bury her face in her pillow. “Well. If you do like him, and someone on the wrong side finds out–”

“Stop. Stop it! Mom, I don’t want to hear about your work!”

Paula frowns. Alcohol has hardened her features while Artemis just feels like her face is made of pudding.

“You think anyone else cares about what I did?” Paula asks. “In the slums? In Gotham?” She does not wheel away even when Artemis pulls her blanket over her face. “All my friends have something on their backs. Not as big as mine, but it’s easy to talk about it to them. I regret, but I am not ashamed. I keep quiet in front of you because, why? You don’t want to hear about it.”

A briny stain appears on Artemis’ pillow.

“But my past is yours, too,” Paula says. “And you need to take what is yours. Even if you don’t tell anyone about it, always know what you have and where it is. If you don’t, someone else might find it and pick it up. A good person will give it back to you. Or even fix it. A bad person will take it for themselves.”

The door opens, but does not shut.

“Next time, hide Dick behind the dresser.”

Artemis curls into the fetal position.

“And be careful. He’s Bruce Wayne’s son, so everyone’s waiting for a little trouble. But he’s a nice boy, too. So whatever you’re doing, be nice to him.”

\- - -

Her memories are fuzzy, but not missing, and Artemis only has a mild headache at most. She hates her mother for being right. Even more when Paula deposits plain milk and poached eggs on toast in front of her.

“Drink water when you’re done with the milk. Hangovers are like colds. You need to get them early or they get worse.” Artemis mashes the egg into her toast with more violence than necessary. “And say you’re sorry to Dick. He’s soft. It won’t be long before he forgives you.”

\- - -

Dick looks up when Artemis walks into the dance studio twenty minutes early. Clearly, he sees her. But he doesn’t even glare before looking away, and that stings more than his anger would have. Someone tuts and Artemis glares at Mauricio, standing in a box of sticky powder for his ballet shoes, and shaking his head. Indra is waiting next to him with the same scowl.

“Girl,” Maury lectures, wagging his finger at Artemis. “You are always making that boy cry about something. Why you gotta be like that?”

“Such a bad, evil woman,” Indra says, crossing her arms.

“I know that you’re just naturally that petty and Dick didn’t tell you to say any of that, so go fuck yourselves.” Artemis walks over to Dick. “Hi, Dick.”

After a long moment, he finally looks up. “Hey.”

“I know I was drunk last night, but…” Artemis thinks about what her mom had said. “You know, I wasn’t even that drunk. I was perfectly able to control myself. I probably could have driven. If I had a car. And somewhere to go. I just thought I could use the alcohol as a free pass for anything shitty I said. And now that I’m sober, I still feel bad about it. In fact, I feel really bad about it. So… I’m sorry.”

Shock registers on Dick’s face, and then he springs up to hug her. “That was the best apology ever, Artemis.”

Slow clapping from the rosin box. Indra and Maury then progress to holding each other and pretending to cry.

“Most beautiful apology ever!” Indra wails.

“Now kiss!” Maury commands.

Artemis flips them both off.

\- - -

Dick actually decides to go in through the front door when he tags along on the ride home today. As they reach Artemis’ house, she smells artichoke tea steeping. Dick takes a curious breath when Paula opens the door.

“Oh, Richard! Good afternoon!” Artemis pretends not to see the smug grin, but 'Richard’ is a little more noticeable and confusing. And alarming. What is her mom planning? “Would you like to stay for tea?”  
  
“I love tea!” Dick says, oblivious. “My butler is English.”  
  
“Very good!” Artemis’ mom waves them into the living room and closes the door. “But today we are having a Vietnamese drink, tra atiso.”

“Artichoke?” Dick asks.  
  
“Yes, it means artichoke! What a smart boy.” Her mom pours the tea and pets Dick’s hair while it steeps. “And so handsome.”  
  
Artemis twitches. “Mom! He’s fourteen and you’re–!” She doesn’t remember her mom’s exact age. It’s being blocked out by the massive amount of disgust she feels. “Your youngest daughter is older than he is and that is gross.”

“I don’t need to be young to call someone handsome.”  
  
Dick preens. “May I set the table?”

“Yes, you may.”

Paula wheels over to the kitchen, asking Artemis to help her find the rice cakes. And… shit. Artemis looks around in the normal drawers but finds nothing, as she expected, because she ate them all last night right before she decided to ransack the booze too. Then her mom clears her throat, holding up a new package of the cakes and still looking smug.

“See? What did I say to you this morning?”

Artemis frowns, then recites, “Hangovers are like colds.”

Even she has no idea what her mom says in Vietnamese, but Paula throws the rice cakes at her. Artemis plates three of them and carries two to the living room.


	3. Semester 3: double-g

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is absolutely no reason for a rich boy to get his phone cut off, but very many reasons why a fifteen-year-old vigilante might disappear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Jason swears too. And not kiddie swears like goshdarnheck. Other than that, he was the hardest little boy to characterize on the face of the planet when I wrote this and he still kind of is. I don't know why.

Most of her life, Artemis’ experience with physical contact has been limited to attack, defend, and dodge. With varying levels of acrobatics and props. She has the gist of basic social contact like shoulder pats, and hugs are now comfortable. But intense physical exertion tends to make her fall back into the kind she is most experienced with. That is, combat.

This causes problems when, at the end of the spring semester, Vidya choreographs a series of partnered dances for everyone as rehearsal for the end-of-year recital. They’re assigned partners. This would be okay if Artemis wasn’t the tallest girl. That means she is paired with the tallest boy: Maury.

While a good dancer to the point of surprising Artemis, his personality is not one which discourages aggressive competition. Most of their rehearsal is littered with hissing swears at each other in Spanish and Vietnamese before grudging attempts to salvage their dignity by getting the dance perfect. 

Once they manage to get through the whole combination without a single problem, their reward: Sitting out the rest of the rehearsal if they want to. Artemis yanks her hand away, jams her ass into a corner, and swigs water like a horse. On the opposite wall, her reflection stares grumpily and sweatily back at her.

Vidya sits next to her. “I know you and Maury don’t get along. But I have never seen a pair of dancers memorize the choreography so quickly while arguing at the same time.”

Raising an eyebrow, Artemis answers, “Thank you.”

“Now the worst part is over, and you can work on being nice to each other.” Vidya pats her on the shoulder and Artemis grumbles.

Being partnered with Indra, Dick has a much easier time of things. Artemis glares as he wanders over. Unperturbed, Dick greets her with a wave and sits down. Despite having worked longer, his sweat looks more like a unobtrusive and aesthetically pleasing sheen over his skin, instead of Artemis’ bedraggled uncomfortable dampness.

“You work well under pressure,” he tells her.

“Snipping at each other isn’t pressure.” Artemis sniffs. “Not studying until the day before a math test? _That_ is pressure.” As is seeing your friends almost die. But if Dick knows that, he’s not telling. And if Dick doesn’t know, she won’t compromise her identity. There’s testing the waters, and there’s being stupid.

“But don’t you hate arguing?”

“Why would I hate arguing?” Artemis argues. “It’s like breathing to me.”

“You got that right!” Maury yells from the other side of the room. “Cunt!”

“Dick!” Artemis clamps her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Dick.”

He laughs. “I’m used to it.” Then Dick stands up and holds his hand out. “Since your partner’s gone solo, you want to dance with someone else?”

Hell, Artemis shouldn’t get lazy just because her rehearsal today is optional. If it was training, she wouldn’t. And this has the same amount of physical conditioning with slightly less possibility of getting injured. Artemis grabs Dick’s hand and pulls herself up, then realizes she has no idea what they’re about to do.

“What are we going to do?”

“Waltz.”

On instinct, Artemis looks down at her feet, and Dick is kind enough to let her. But only the first time. One leg steps forward, the other goes to the side, they bring their feet together, and then repeat the whole thing towards the back. Then Dick taps Artemis’ chin up, and arranges his shoulders so Artemis has no choice but to mirror his movements.

“Hey, shrimp,” Artemis says after they’ve swirled around the floor once or twice. “You can almost look me in the eye. What gives?”

He laughs, and they say their goodbyes for the summer.

If Artemis had known this was the last time she would see Dick for months, she would have said something more significant.

Or at least hugged him.

Those were shit last words.

\- - -

After what happened with Black Canary, Artemis has no choice but to leave her civilian phone at home. Though it is futile, she races to call Dick in-between lengthy missions. For a week, her calls are returned with distressing regularity. Dick even meets up with her sometimes. Whether this is better or worse, Artemis has no idea. Because she has to pretend that she isn’t sleep deprived, or desperate for a hot shower and eight hours of sleep, or watching Dick like a hawk to see if he shows any sign of the first two.

Then, a vague sense of foreboding sifts into the Gotham air. Artemis begins to leave messages which are not returned, suspiciously or not. Then she segues into texting him. Then, she finally encounters “The number you have dialed has been disconnected”.

For the fifth time today, and an uncountable tally added to this week, Artemis sits in the living room and presses the dial button. Her mom is at a friend’s house. When the inevitable “The number you have–” plays again, Artemis hangs up and speed dials Indra.

“Hey, Indra?”

“Yeah.”

“Get over here. What do you have on you?”

Indra rummages through the fridge on her end. “Beer…”

“No thanks.” Artemis is a weepy drunk and weeping means vulnerability. Or, it might catapult her out of sadness into something unpredictable. “What about weed?”

“Bad day, huh?”

Artemis’ throat blocks. “Just–”

“I’ll bring Chelsea. Is that cool?”

“Okay. Yeah.”

They arrive in ten minutes at the front door in jeans and light hoodies. Artemis leads them to her room, props open the window and dangles her legs over the windowsill, then tests her weight on the fire escape. Indra and Chelsea follow her out, grime flaking onto their clothes. The three of them barely fit onto the grating, but nothing creaks or shifts ominously. So Artemis slumps back into the railing and waits for Indra.

“What’s up?” Indra asks. She pulls a matchbox and a blunt out of her pocket. Her face, already brown, has a deep summery tan which flickers in as she lights up the joint.

“I can’t find Dick. He wasn’t answering his phone and then his phone got disconnected.”

“So, a Gotham vacation.” Indra gives up the first pull to Artemis. “I haven’t seen anything in the papers.”

“No news,” Chelsea says.

“Is no news,” Indra finishes.

Artemis pulls on it and then leans forward, sprawling onto Indra’s shoulder. Chelsea takes the joint in the corner of her mouth, mumbling around it. “You know? Your hair is so long.”

She forgot a jacket. Gotham summers are short and searing. But metal turns to ice at night as soon as autumn. Cold, grimy fingers wrench around her bones and Artemis shakes in its grip. Shifting, Indra arranges Artemis across her lap and strokes her hair, like talking to a sick kid. “And soft. I always liked that.”

Gothamites do not reassure with optimism. In their city, optimism feels like a lie.

\- - -

Robin doesn’t show up on the team, either.

Everyone is worried after the first few weeks. But Artemis is especially worried. There is absolutely no reason for a rich boy to get his phone cut off, but very many reasons why a fifteen-year-old vigilante might disappear. Yet, by the time Artemis gets to Batman, he brushes her off with a vague, “Private business. None of your concern.”

In Gotham, being rude means being annoyed, and if Batman is just annoyed by everyone asking, there probably isn’t anything seriously wrong with Robin. She’s still kind of worried about Dick and, well, that just means she’s not sure if they’re separate people or not.

When Wally tells Artemis he likes her, Artemis has no idea what to say, except: “There’s a guy at my school.”

“Oh. How long have you been dating?”

Artemis shrugs. If Wally assumes that they are dating from some vague wording, it’s not technically a lie, and Artemis is okay with it. “It’s just that he, uh, disappeared.”

“For how long?”

“Oh…” Artemis thinks. “A few weeks.”

“What?!” In an admirably noble gesture, Wally offers, “I could go find–”

“No, don’t.” Wally still doesn’t know she actually lives in Gotham. It might have spilled that her mother was Huntress and her father Sportsmaster, but Artemis can keep her present as she likes it. To herself. “He’s probably on a trip somewhere. No service. It’s cool.”

This isn’t enough to convince Wally, much less herself, but Artemis sells it by looking as stubborn as possible.

\- - -

Once school starts, everyone treats her with strange politeness. Maury gives her a nod and asks how her summer was, and Artemis says it was fine, as if they were strangers. Indra and Chelsea hug her and nobody even cracks a joke about lesbian sandwiches.

She doesn’t run into Babs until lunchtime, where the librarian is at her usual place. “Hey, Babs? Can we talk somewhere?”

“Okay. Let’s go to my house.” Babs picks up her tray and Artemis follows. She expects a car. Or a train.

But they don’t end up at a house. They don’t even leave the grounds. They end up at the library. Because Gotham Academy’s library is not a single large room filled with bookshelves. It is a five story building. With marble columns. And windowseats. Babs walks in through the front door and waves to the person at the desk.

“Hi, Ofelia.” Ofelia eyes Artemis’ tray. “Don’t worry, she’s with me.”

Ofelia shrugs and waves them in, trays and all.

“Welcome to my home.” Babs takes her to a windowseat, and once they curl up their knees they just manage to fit into a corner. “What’s up?”

“Have you seen Dick? Or talked to him, or…”

“Oh.” Babs looks down and Artemis braces herself. “I was going to ask you.”

Artemis sighs. “Okay, then. No news…”

“Is no news,” Babs finishes. Their ankles gently touch through the layers of their woolen socks as she adds, “He told me he liked you. Not right before, but…”

Close enough. Her sandwich is suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. “Oh.”

Gothamites are stereotyped as liars, but they’re really not. They just understand that truth can be used as either a bandage or a weapon. Artemis isn’t at a point where she can decide which one Barbara means.

Maybe deducing her way out of this will work. Artemis puts on her deepest, most raspy thinking voice.

_First, determine relationship with teller for context. Mathematics is useful for logic. With A = Artemis, and D = Dick, solve for B._

> _D = friend of A_
> 
> _B = friend of (friend of) A_
> 
> _B = (friend of) 2 A_

_So. You’re–_

Artemis shakes her head and reclaims her thoughts. _ **I’m** not exactly friends with Barbara. We’re friends of the same friend. Dick probably hadn’t asked for advice on how to talk to me. Not that he had to. I mean, he could have just brought it up–_

“Do you like him?” comes from Babs’ corner.

“I…” _Stay neutral and watch her reaction to gauge why she would ask that_ , says the Bat voice. “Don’t…” Babs doesn’t react; but does lack of reaction count as a reaction? Shit, Artemis doesn’t remember what lack of reaction means. “Know.”

“You don’t seem like the type to waffle,” Barbara says mildly.

Why did Artemis even try to outsmart a librarian? Little Miss Gordon’s thoughts are probably organized in the Dewey Decimal system of logic. They’re checked out of her mouth after being further categorized by most appropriate tone. Artemis can barely organize her lecture notes.

“I just don’t know if it matters.”

“Sometimes a Gotham vacation isn’t permanent,” Babs tells her. “My dad told me it’s not all as bad as the papers make it seem. It’s just most of the people found aren’t–”

“Your dad?” Artemis asks. “Gordon. That Gordon? You’re the _Commish’s_ daughter?” Someone shushes them. Artemis complies, but flips whoever off. “Man, and I’m just…” She stops before saying Paula Crock’s kid. If anyone would know what happened almost ten years ago, the Commish would. And Gotham kids learn to snoop early on. “Ugh, I just came out of Gotham North. Here I am, hanging out with Prince Bruce’s son and the daughter of the Dark Knight’s trusted lieutenant.”

“Not just…” Barbara protests. “Artemis, it’s been a year. And at least we’re not using it to build a reputation.”

Artemis can’t even bother to overanalyze the use of 'we’. For all Artemis knows, it was the royal 'we’, because Wayne has the money and Gordon has the respect. Artemis wraps her sandwich up with paper and misery. “I’m the _Ron Weasley_ of this little trio! I need some time to think.”

“But that would make me Hermione.”

Artemis scowls at Barbara’s red hair. “Ginny.”

“Luna,” Babs fires back.

“What?”

“Moon goddess. Blonde.” Artemis puts her tray on a table and draws her knees up. The sun blankets her shoulders with warmth, right up until a hand settles there. Artemis looks up to see Babs smiling, not confidently, but with enough courage to count. “Good friends with Ginny.”

_Not malicious,_ the Bat voice concedes.

\- - -

“Artemis.” Indra waves a slip of paper covered in glitter with a number scrawled on in orange highlighter. “I’ll bring the double-u if you bring the double-g.”

Meaning Indra will bring water and probably ecstasy too, while Artemis is to bring guests and glowsticks. Artemis doesn’t know where that slang came from, but it always gets a cheap little laugh.

She puts on black skinny jeans when she gets home and debates on turning her superhero top inside out. That’s probably a bad idea. Artemis puts on a baggy yellow sweater and pins the hem up to show her midriff. Then she calls Zatanna.

“Hey Zee, if you’re free tonight can you come over to my house? I need to bring a friend to a rave in Gotham.”

“Yeah, sure.” The zeta beam announces Zatanna’s exit after Artemis gives her address, which is probably abusing team resources for personal stuff, but Artemis doesn’t care. She and Zee are the only ones who use their real names as codenames, and the line is murky anyway. “So what’s a rave?”

Artemis thinks about explaining. “Just put on black or neon. Something you don’t mind getting covered in glitter. Also, can you conjure a lot of fresh glowsticks? Like a gallon or two?”

Zee changes her clothes to a neon blue halter top and orange skinny jeans. Then she mumbles something under her breath, but nothing happens. That’s cool, because something Zatanna can do is transport them to the kandi closet.

Really it’s just a dollar store in West Gotham. It’s bustling with a bunch of other students in black or neon, nobody looking each other in the eye as they clean out the shelves. Zatanna looks at Artemis’ jeans and sweatshirt, then asks, “Why isn’t anyone else looking at us? We’re all going to the same place, right?”

“They’re not dressed yet, Zee. It’s polite.”

By the time Zatanna gets back, Chelsea is already waiting in Artemis’ living room, with a few gallons of water and a small durable box. Indra is in the bathroom.

“This is so mysterious I don’t know whether to be intrigued or annoyed,” Zee announces. “Tell me what a rave is!”

“My, my,” Chelsea says. “A pretty, Hispanic virgin. This pleases us.”

“Where are we even going?”

Artemis grabs a pen and paper, calls the number, then hangs up after writing it. “Warehouse at pier thirty-nine.”

“That’s kind of shifty, isn’t it?” Indra comes out covered in the requisite kandi and Zee looks a little less worried. “Oh. That’s what you meant by being dressed!” Artemis heads into the bathroom with Zee and a bucket of kandi covered bangles and necklaces. Zatanna slides on the bangles instead of changing her outfit with magic, and looks downright chipper.

The magician’s mood changes as soon as they get to the warehouse, which is blaring music. “Oh my god!” Zee yells over the speakers. “This is–” and the word she says is probably dance, but scrambles into something like: “–unce music!”

“Technically it’s house music, not dance music!” Indra answers.

“Hipster!” Artemis yells.

“I said 'unce’ music and I _meant_ it!” Zee yells. And then Artemis is completely lost as to what she says, but it sounds like “Evig em sgulprae,” and then Zee stuffs a pair of earplugs into her ears.

They hadn’t been in her hand before. Artemis quickly covers for her. “If that was Spanish, I have no idea what it means!”

“She’s wearing earplugs already, Artemis,” Chelsea says. “She’s lost.”

Gradually they convince Zee that a little dancing won’t hurt and Indra breaks out the ecstasy. Zee refuses to partake, but only because they need someone to make sure no one dies. She ends up having a great time anyway even if everyone has to pantomime stuff like jerks because she never takes her earplugs out.

At roughly 3:30 in the morning Artemis is spent, stumbling out of her high looking and feeling roughly like a zombie.

“Feeling better, Arty?” Indra wheezes right after Zee fishes the plugs out of her ears.

Zee raises an eyebrow. “Were you doing drugs while _sick?_ ”

“No.” Artemis wobbles and wonders if Zee’s strict Catholic childhood wasn’t so strict after all. Zee did live in New York.

“Nah,” Indra says. “She’s just worried.”

“About what?”

Before Artemis can open her mouth and nip the situation in the bud, Chelsea says, “She’s been mutually eyefucking this one boy but he took a Gotham vacation before they could do it for real.”

“Gotham vacation?”

“No one knows where he is or what he’s doing. You know. What happens in Gotham.”

“What? That’s terrible! I could–” Zee slings Artemis’ arm around her shoulder. She begins mumbling words and shaking her head before thinking up a new option.

Chelsea says, “I must still be high. I don’t understand a word she’s saying.”

“Zee,” Artemis yanks her arm off Zee’s shoulder and promptly falls off. But she shakes off the offered hand. “No. You don’t have to do anything.”

“But how long has this guy been missing? You could have asked Batman!” Artemis glares. In an admirable moment, Zee recovers. “I mean, he’s Gotham’s hero and all. Greatest detective in the world? I’m pretty sure–”

“ _The_ Batman,” Artemis stresses 'the’ to further distance herself. “–Has better things to do than look after a bunch of random kids!” Though he makes time for the team, and he’s kind of nice considering his Gotham heritage, she has little reason to believe he has time for individuals. “So… why the fuck should I care?”

Something feels wet on her cheeks and Artemis looks up to see if it is raining. Then she yanks her arm away from Zee, shoves her limp bangles up past her elbow, and scrubs her eyes with a long, yellow sleeve.

“Because I don’t. Care.”

There is a long, tense moment in which Zee almost looks like she buys it. Then the magician steps forward and hugs her.

If Artemis cries on Zatanna’s shoulder, she refuses to remember if she did, or for how long.

\- - -

A small figure in a cape appears out of the zeta beam, with a new designation number being called but the same name. Artemis squints. “Di–”

He turns around. While the similarities are great, he doesn’t quite look the same. He scowls too much and it looks kind of funny on his tiny face. Like he’s trying to be Batman, except Batman never really puts his hands on his hips like he owns a place.

“Did you get lost, kid?” Artemis asks.

“I’m Robin now.”

“Right.” Artemis crosses her arms. Yeah, this kid is from Gotham, she can already tell. Gothamites breed sass into their youngsters like no other city. But she won’t believe he’s the new Robin until Batman’s vouched for him in person. “So, Robin Now. Where’s Batman?”

“Coming,” says another, vaguely familiar voice. “I brought Robin here.”

Artemis tries not to scream and manages a muffled 'wheraagh’ before realizing that the figure does not have the trademark pointed ears, long cape or deep voice. In fact he doesn’t have a cape at all. And he has a blue bird on his chest, not a bat. And…

He’s hot.

But Artemis has never seen this man before. Her words come out with more instinct than thought. “Who the fuck are you!”

“Not in front of the kid, Artemis!” hot new guy says.

“How the fuck do you know my _name_?”

Hot new guy sighs at the profanity, then says, “I’ll give you a hint. I upgraded from that…” He points to Robin’s suit, then taps a blue symbol on his chest: “To this.”

Artemis smirks. “Okay, Blue Bird. Welcome back.”

“It’s Nightwing.”

“She’s got a point,” New Robin says. “Blue Bird.” Maybe New Robin isn’t so bad after all. Artemis ruffles his hair, and underneath the eyemask she can tell he rolls his eyes.

\- - -

The room hushes as Artemis wanders through. After a week of this it is not exactly unusual, but then someone has the gall to tap Artemis on the shoulder. Pivoting, Artemis snaps, “What, loser?”

Damn, he’s cute. Must be a new student. In which case he is most likely lost, not the loser. But once Artemis has insulted someone, she has to keep looking stubborn until they prove otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” Black Hair-Blue Eyes-Tall-And-Fit tells her. “I would have told you before, but something came up.”

Scrutinizing him gives Artemis an excuse to stare at his face. “I think I would remember you. Loser.”

“Artemis, it’s me,” he says.

“Who?”

“Dick.”

\- - -

People hide their whispering with their stretched out fingers, and peek out from above their hands.

\- - -

“Oh,” Artemis says. Her mind goes on: _Stay mad at him! No matter how hot he is!_

She glares.

“I’m really, really, _really_ sorry,” Dick says.

“Whatever.” Artemis turns.

“Artemis!”

“So what’s your new schedule?” Artemis asks.

Slowly, hallway chatter resumes, complete with slow walkers in front of them. At one point Maury yells, “Bitch, don’t talk to him like that!”

\- - -

Lunchtime.

“I just wanted you to know,” Artemis says over pesto sacchettini, which she can now pronounce. “Those were shit last words I said to you. I should have been nicer.”

“What last words?”

He doesn’t even have the decency to remember her awful nigh-last words. She remembers. She called Dick a shrimp.

Artemis smacks his shoulder and then hugs him. “Sorry for also saying shit first words. It wasn’t personal, you know?”

\- - -

They have dance class together, and only dance class. This is bad because Artemis no longer sees him anywhere else except for lunch, but good because it reveals that Post-Puberty Dick looks great in spandex. Suspiciously great, in fact. Artemis now understands quality over quantity. But Dick lacks his own grace of before his little Gotham vacation. His balance is hazy, and he slings himself through the air like a desperate bullet.

“You’re clumsy today,” Vidya tells him.

“No, I just grew about six inches taller.” Dick’s voice cracks. “Needs a little getting used to.”

Artemis heads to the boy’s lockers immediately after class, and is unsurprised to find Dick pacing frantically. She waves to him and gets a rant in return. “I don’t know what to do,” he tells her. “Or, I know what to do, but my body won’t do what my brain wants. It’s like the wires have jumbled loose or something.” He’s drunk. Drunk off hormones.

“Hey. Dick. If I could adjust to these–” Artemis motions to her chest. Granted, her boobs aren’t that big, but uneven weight is still uneven weight. “–You’ll be fine.”

Dick swipes at the air.

“Artemis!” Maury yells. “I can smell your dumb blonde sweat from all the way over here. If you’re not getting some, get out!”

If Artemis were Batman? She wouldn’t let Robin fight like this. Like he’s forgotten everything he knows.

It’s harder for the metas to cope with challenge once their limits have been reached, Batman had said once. Since it comes up less often, they don’t always know what to do with a rock in their path. And along those lines, Artemis thinks that can go for talent as well as superpowers. People who never had to think about being graceful are horrible at coping with a sudden lack of it.

How had Vidya taught her to be graceful last semester?

“Relax,” Artemis says, before ducking out of the lockers. “Think about something else.”

\- - -

Artemis glares at Nightwing’s back every chance she gets, now.

Nightwing is like the assistant coach to Batman and Kaldur’s coaching when it comes to Robin.

Nightwing was born for assistant coaching. Kaldur keeps putting Robin on missions which anyone can see are the soft ones where no one has a likely chance of being hurt and there is very little chance of civilian collateral. Unfortunately, this means that Artemis can’t get a good look at Nightwing’s fighting, because he’s too busy hovering over New Robin in case the little shit gets into trouble.

And seriously, if there was an award for causing the most trouble, New Robin would win it.

Everyone knows that Nightwing was the old Robin, but Artemis still misses the cute little troll who stuck to protocol and always came through in the end. This makes it so Artemis can’t complain about Nightwing’s lack of flashy moves or the amount of time he spends lecturing Robin or how he just generally looks frazzled trying to get Robin to shape up. Because everyone wants Robin to shape up.

On another one of Robin’s fucked up missions, Artemis waits outside the training room. Robin comes out first, doing his best to look brooding but mostly just looking like a brat.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Robin snaps at her.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re fucking disappointed in me.”

“Watch your mouth, you little shit!” Artemis retorts.

“If there’s a rule against swearing, you just broke it too!”

“There’s no rule,” Artemis says. Actually she doesn’t know if there’s a rule, she just hasn’t gotten angry enough to swear at anyone besides Robin. And Red Arrow, but his status as a member of the team is fuzzy at best. “But you keep mouthing off to the wrong person, you’re going to get slapped. And a Gothamite is always the wrong person. I won’t feel bad hitting a twelve-year-old! Even if he wasn’t trained by the Bat!”

They glare at each other.

Then Robin laughs. “You’re the first person who’s been honest.” Artemis shrugs. “Not like Nightwing. He’s such a pansy.”

“Hey.”

“Well… he is!” Robin says. “All his stupid lectures about experience and protocol and how he’s been doing this for five years. He’s trying to hit me, but with WORDS. That’s like trying to hit my bullet-proof vest with a… with a feather from his stupid blue bird.” For emphasis Robin taps his chest.

Artemis scowls. “Nightwing is not stupid. And he isn’t trying to hit you with words or anything else. He just doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

“He was the one who _got_ me on the team!”

Artemis sighs. “Getting hurt on a high risk mission is different from getting hurt because you fucked up. We can’t control risks, but we can control fucking up by taking things seriously.”

Robin rolls his eyes. “I’m taking it seriously!”

“I’m doubting you on that.”

For some reason, Robin looks at her and his shoulders slump. Then he flips his elbows out to have his cape billow dramatically into the air. “That’s great!” He storms away, swearing an impressively blue streak. “That’s just fucking DANDY! Let’s all pick on the new kid, huh? Doing–”

Artemis stares after Robin. She remembers looking through a vent and seeing brown eyes. She remembers how she had knocked Robin over twice times, and broken his nose. How Robin actually took off his mask.

At first Artemis feels conflicted at how Batman just might be collecting children in much the same way that other people collect strays. Then she remembers that the winter break was an intensive training session with absolutely no missions, and feels even more conflicted.

In her opinion, giving a new Robin a training session in disguise as the old Robin where no one would expect him to talk much, and he wouldn’t be in actual danger, and the old Robin might have been recovering from a concussion, was not an entirely shit thing to do.

But maybe Artemis’ opinion is skewed. She spent six years with Crusher Crock, after all.

\- - -

Something scrapes on the wall under Artemis’ window and she looks up to see a strange hand, clinging to a windowsill which is too narrow for it. Artemis yanks an arrow out of her quiver, then sees a more familiar head of neat black hair and puts it down.

“Hey, Dick.” Artemis lets him in and he stumbles a little. “Got drunk, rich boy?” Dick looks so hurt that she immediately feels bad. “Sorry.”

Looking up at him is a surprising change, and having Dick not be happy is even weirder. But at least his eye color is the same. His voice cracks. “It’s okay.”

“Don’t even lie.” Artemis sits down and waves him onto the bed. “I would hate it if I suddenly couldn’t shoot a bow. I know you hate dealing with this.”

Cautiously, Dick sits next to her. “I feel kind of bad for not listening to any of my teachers. That thing about not knowing what you’ve got until you lose it, or however the song goes–”

And Artemis feels bad for not being that nice to him. She slides up behind Dick and hugs him around the collarbone while he rambles. Tucking her chin into her chest to keep it from digging into Dick’s shoulder, Artemis’ mouth touches his neck.

It’s not really a kiss. Not at all. It doesn’t count for Artemis. She hadn’t meant to do it. The amount of pressure applied wouldn’t stop blood from a papercut. The breath she’d exhaled would not keep oxygen circulating through a drowned person’s lungs.

And what the hell does she care that he smells like _clean sheets right out of the dryer on a snowy winter night?_ She’s projecting. It’s cold. She needs to change from a summer blanket to a quilt, and therefore Artemis had not kissed Dick. Unrefutable evidence.

The thing is, Dick reacts as if she had meant to do it. He tenses up a little. In Artemis’ brain, the voice of her mother is finally starting to crowd out Lawrence, with the profound words of wisdom: ’ _Be nice to him._ ’

“Sorry,” Artemis says. “Accident.”

Sliding back away from him, a swoop of cold air rushes between them. It does nothing to clear Artemis’ head. Crossing her legs and her arms do nothing to make her feel more secure.

“But hypothetically,” comes spilling out of her mouth. “If it wasn’t an accident–” This must be what Dick feels like trying to control a body which he can no longer control– “Would you want to keep going? Just. You know. Curious.”

“I–um–” And Dick cranes his head over his shoulder with a deer-in-the-headlights stare. “Yeah, but I don’t know… how–to keep going.”

Swinging her knees forward into a kneel, Artemis leans forward and sets her fingers at his jaw. “I do.”

Their gazes cross for a second before Dick’s blue eyes flick away.

“What?” Artemis asks. “Don’t feel bad about it. Everyone’s shit when they start out.”

“I know, but–”

“Relax.”

“I can’t think about anything else,” Dick mutters.

“So don’t.” Artemis unhands his face and then slips her hands up his shirt onto his back. There are tendons under his skin connecting Dick’s ribs to his spine. His breath, sharp and uneven, circulates through his lungs like a startled fish.

She finds the place where she accidentally applied pressure, between Dick’s neck and his shoulder, then intentionally applies pressure. In her peripheral vision his eyes widen, but the rest of him goes slack.

Dick might not be thinking of other things, but Artemis trails a hand up through his hair. She wonders if she can find the scar, invisible under his regrown hair and most likely forgotten by the general populace. And something–something nags at her as she feels the tenuous string of needle lines. She forgets by the time she kisses Dick on the lips, as per usual making out standards, and he must have eaten an orange or something because his mouth has a citrusy tang.

\- - -

Artemis cannot prove it was her doing when Dick is suddenly better during dance class. Not back to his old level. Only better than his worst. But looking in the mirror, she catches his eyes on her back, and she can’t help but feel really, really smug.

While wringing her hair out with a towel in the hallway, because the girl’s showers are seriously too crowded, Artemis encounters Maury.

“Aha. Who fucked Dick Grayson up in here?” Artemis ignores him. Even when he walks right up to her and says, “Artemis Crock! You want to know how I know you fucked him?”

“I don’t care about your detective skills–”

“So Dick walks into the locker room. Towel over his neck. And you know what he says to me?”

“Seriously, I don’t give a shit–”

“He said, 'Hey, how’s it going, Maury?’”

Artemis scowls.

“But he said it in a way that totally let off that you fucked him. Bitch.”

Artemis snaps her towel at him, but he dodges. “I want those thirty seconds of my life back, Maury.”

“Not until you admit that you fucked him into the floor!”

Indra wanders past, talking on her phone, but puts her hand over the mouthpiece to say, “Yeah, whatever Maury said. Slut.” She lifts her hand. “No, sorry, baby. I’m completely swamped this week…”

“And I don’t mean you were having sex on the floor,” Maury goes on. Artemis sits on the ground and pulls out her math binder. “I mean you started on the bed, but the intensity of your fucking broke through the bed so you had to keep having sex on the floor, which you then fucked him into. I bet you topped. Bitch.”

“Asshole,” Artemis fires back.

“Crack whore.”

“Blue balls.”

“Cum dumpster.”

Artemis struggles to think of an insult. “Sperm donor!”

“ _Cradlesnatcher!_ ”

From behind Maury, Dick laughs. “I’ve never seen an argument evolve _out_ of profanity!” Artemis looks up to find him in uniform. “Anyway, we didn’t have sex last night.”

“We fucked all night,” Artemis insists, grabbing her things and jumping up.

“Artemis!”

“Shh.” Artemis shoves her binder back into her bag and grips Dick’s arm, walking them both out of the dance hallway. She flips the bird at Maury as they go through the door. “Now he doesn’t know which one is true.”

“Fuck you, puta!” comes the final attack. “Your boys will be whores and your daughters politicians!”

“Huh,” Artemis says. “He’s gained more respect for me.”

Dick removes his arm from her grasp. “How could you tell?”

“Because that last insult had me getting paid.”

\- - -

Whenever the team splits up, it’s usually Wally with Nightwing and Robin because, as much as Artemis hates to say it, someone with superspeed can cover for Nightwing if Robin makes a mistake. And Artemis is very forthright about admitting that she would probably just swear at Robin if she spent too much time with the kid. Nightwing has more patience than anyone, and Wally is too fast to need much patience. Kaldur needs to look after the rest of them.

Sooner or later something goes too wrong even by their new usual standards and Nightwing thinks, _Team, BACKUP–_

But something cuts him off.

Artemis, as the closest, runs over to find Wally taking care of the last of the guards. In a corner Robin shakes an unconscious dark shape on the ground, much larger than he is.

“Hey. _Hey!_ Robin!” Yanking Robin off Nightwing, Artemis finds herself experiencing what it might be like to wrestle a large, angry cat away from something. “Stop _shaking_ him! You might fuck him up!”

“So what the hell am I supposed to do?” Robin yells.

“You call someone who knows!” She taps his temple and thinks, _We’ve got a telepath, remember?_

Artemis tramps over to Nightwing and kneels. His eyemask is broken and it is surreal to actually see his eyes, even if they are closed. While wondering whether to take his mask off or not, because there are little shards that might scratch his cornea or worse, Artemis checks Nightwing’s pulse.

_M'gann?_ she thinks. _Trouble. Nightwing’s passed out._

Robin crosses his arms behind her, and finally Artemis decides to take off the fucking mask because a compromised secret identity is better than a blind Nightwing.

As Artemis’ hand brushes his temple, one gloved hand comes up and grips her wrist.

“I’m awake.”

Without opening his eyes, Nightwing fumbles to sit up. Artemis grabs his arm with her other hand and hauls him up. Nightwing takes his mask off and half of it crumbles away. But, with his eyes still closed, he reaches into one of his belt pouches and takes out another mask.

Artemis realizes she can still discover his identity by feeling for the scar that Dick got braining himself on a locker. Regrown hair or not, he’s probably still got it. But too much time has passed between old Robin’s last disappearance, and Nightwing’s first appearance. Her heart’s not in the search anymore.


	4. Semester 4: gauche

“What do you _mean_ , you need my help with Robin?”

Kaldur and Nightwing have decided to double-team Artemis after everyone else has left the debriefing, by looking earnest, weary, and handsome. It’s just a shade away from begging, so that Artemis finds herself turned on and nervous at the same time.

“Please, Artemis?” Nightwing says.

“Scratch that.” Artemis looks at a spot in-between them to diffuse the attractiveness. “What makes you think I would be any better at dealing with Robin than you two? M'gann is nicer! Conner is stronger! I just swear at the kid. And you two keep telling me not to!”

“We have reason to believe that Robin would be more amenable to suggestions from you than from anyone else,” Kaldur says. “It is likely due to your similar personalities and the fact that neither of you have powers.”

“And you’re not in a position of authority,” Nightwing adds before Artemis can glare at him. “Or someone who held the position he has now. You’re neutral.”

“Therefore, he respects you,” Kaldur finishes. “But he is not in awe of you.”

“He respects me?” Artemis scoffs.

“Hell if I do!” comes from a vent. “I bet she can’t even fight hand to hand!”

Without taking an arrow, Artemis lifts her bow and draws. There’s a clatter of knees and hands on metal as Robin scampers into the labyrinth of ventilation.

“Well, what do you know,” Artemis says. “He does respect me. Landing a hit through a grate with half-inch slots? _No arrow?_ I’m flattered.”

“You should not have threatened him,” Kaldur sighs. He’s already regretting this decision. “Falsely or not, Robin could not see that you meant no harm. And even if he did, we do not discipline based on fear.”

“But he’s _awful_ at the ninja thing, isn’t he?” Artemis goes on.

“He’s just impulsive,” Nightwing says.

“Okay, fine,” Artemis says. “I’ll be Mentor Number 3.”

\- - -

Mission one with the Bat’s new brat. Robin is visibly surprised and nervous as Aqualad assigns him to Artemis’ portion. Maybe, deep down inside, he really did like the security of being under Nightwing’s… well, wing. Or maybe he’s nervous because Artemis pretended to shoot at him. She doesn’t know. But at least the wind’s been knocked out of Robin’s sails.

Inevitably, something goes wrong. Although, giving the little bird credit, it takes longer than usual. He’s actually trying to be careful this time. Artemis finds herself tied to a chair with Robin, too far from M'gann to use the mind-link, and unable to use their comms.

“Don’t worry, kid.” Artemis twists her shoulders. Predictably, they dig into her ribs. “I’ve been in–”

“I got this.”

The ropes fall slack all of a sudden. Artemis cranes her head around to see Robin putting a knife back into his belt. A plain old jackknife, something she could find in a dollar store. Artemis can’t figure out why Robin having that of all things is so weird. Birdarangs are basically flying knives which may or may not explode.

Nightwing swoops down on a line as they reach the skyscraper where M'gann’s bioship is parked. “Robin!” He holds his hand out, but Robin doesn’t take it. He uses his own grappling hook to scale the building, and Nightwing looks a little lost. Artemis takes Nightwing’s hand instead.

“Something wrong?” Nightwing asks.

“We were in a tight spot. Tied up, the usual. The kid cut us out, though.”

The end of mission talk goes as usual with Nightwing resting a hand on Robin’s shoulder. After Kaldur dismisses them, Robin scowls and jerks away. “I know for a fact you were in way harder missions when you got on this team. Stop babying me.”

Kaldur reappears while Artemis scowls at the little shit. “We were all concerned for Nightwing’s safety when he was younger, just as we are concerned for you. We did not always allow him to take such risks.”

“I grew up in North Gotham, not a fucking circus–”

“ _Robin!_ ” Nightwing and Kaldur shout. M'gann gasps, Zatanna looks away, and Wally looks like he’s been plunged into ice water.

“What? Artemis uses way worse–”

“We were not offended by your language!” Kaldur yells, as Artemis crosses her arms. “You have compromised both your civilian identity _and_ Nightwing’s!”

“But we’re not in public–”

“It does not matter! We did not know, and you have told us key details of classified information. You are suspended from the team until Batman sees fit to restore you!”

To Robin’s credit, he struggles for at least ten seconds upon hearing about Batman before storming through the zeta beam, calling them assholes. Artemis tries very hard to keep from envisioning that Robin flips them off while he walks, which is a North Gotham thing. The knife makes more sense, but still something gnaws at her mind. She tries very hard to keep from remembering how Nightwing knew a hell of a lot about how circuses worked and Dick said his parents were trapeze artists.

That wasn’t fair.

Artemis had given up trying to figure out if they were the same person. She didn’t even want to know anymore. But it was all ruined by one little boy who couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut.

Nightwing doesn’t follow Robin. He sits down on the couch in the living room and presses a button on his wrist. No beeping. No typing. No panic. No, ‘Hey Batman, this is Nightwing, Robin just blew our cover and even though it was with people we trust you’re probably going to lecture the shit out of him. Please be nice.’ Because Nightwing would still ask Batman to be nice to Robin after that.

“I’m not going to ask,” Artemis tells him, taking the next seat on the couch. It is the least she can do. “If I… happen to pass you on the street…” Or at school, or climbing up to her window. Shit, she’s not supposed to live in Gotham, either. Star City. “You know. Visiting my cousin… We get held hostage by the Joker or something… I don’t know you.”

Nightwing leans back, with enough space between their shoulders for a single sheet of paper to squeeze through. Against her will, Artemis remembers touch typing all those years ago. How Dick hadn’t covered his eyes. She grips her own elbows harder as Nightwing says, “We’ve been trying so hard to teach him–” His voice cracks. “Teach him to be careful.”

To be fair, Artemis thinks. But, to be fair, some people just can’t tell the difference between right and wrong. Like moral dyslexia. And it is harder to learn morality in Gotham. Like reading gray on gray.

> _Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing;_

“He didn’t cut us out with a birdarang,” Artemis says, to drown out her own thoughts. Nightwing looks up. “It was a cheap jackknife. No symbol.”

And finally she understands why she is freaked out. No symbols means Batman didn’t make it, or give it to him. Nightwing is even less likely to give a switchblade to a kid. So, Robin must have bought it himself. Or found it himself.

Or stolen it.

All Gothamites are thieves. The question is what they steal and why. Catwoman steals because it is her passion. Jade steals anything that can be exchanged for money. Batman steals to keep people from getting hurt. Artemis tries, but can’t stop snitching candy from the grocer’s because, well, she likes caramel.

Artemis doesn’t have to be the world’s greatest detective to know that Nightwing will steal hearts. But she might have to be a girl to know that Nightwing doesn’t really mean to do it. They just drag along like fish in a net. It’s the place he was raised.

Oh. And if everyone steals in Gotham at least once, Robin must just be following the crowd. Can she blame him for getting a head start? Maybe it was just the one knife. Normal boys think switchblades are the shit. But Artemis just boxed herself into a corner–she knows Batman won’t tell her anything, and she can’t even snoop. She promised.

Nightwing sighs and rubs his temples. The hand closest to Artemis falls onto his own knee. A thin, invisible wall lies between them, preventing contact at all costs. “I’ll tell Batman about it.”

It occurs to her that Robin got scared when they mentioned Batman. Nightwing might keep his fear close to the chest most times, but if there was one thing he honestly wasn’t afraid of, it was the superhero without superpowers who could take control of the League with one word.

> _I look far out into the pregnant night–_

Artemis averts her gaze and, very gently, rests her hand on his wrist. “We’ll laugh about this someday.”

Instantly, Artemis realizes that she’s said the worst thing possible. Even before Nightwing flinches. She should stop talking when she’s hurting and exhausted.

\- - -

Her torso takes a while to express the fact that it didn’t really appreciate being bound. Cracked ribs if she’s being generous. Bruised is more likely. But with her blazer, at least Artemis doesn’t have to worry about awkward questions for the rope-shaped bruises on her arms and ribs. When she gets to lunch, it doesn’t look like Babs is in a good mood either. Artemis limps through small talk as painful as breathing.

Then Babs sighs. “What’s wrong?”

Artemis’ life is a wealth of troubles in both her civilian and superhero identities, so it’s not exactly hard to pick one. But one in particular stands out.

“My sister’s getting married.” Artemis sighs. It’s a sigh-worthy day up in Gotham today. “Got married. She got married. Without telling us.”

“You don’t like the guy?”

“He’s a dick.” Artemis sighs again. “No offense to a certain boy.”

“He probably won’t take any,” Babs says.

“But my sister is a cunt, so it worked out nicely for them.”

“You don’t like your sister?”

“She left. My mom heard it from her friend who has family in Vegas. Said she saw someone who looked familiar, and what do you know?” Artemis shoves her tray aside and puts her head on the table.

A few light steps announce Dick’s arrival. Artemis looks up, and instantly knows: He’s been crying. Even though she can’t put her finger on how. The Bat frowns on gut instinct unless it is an emergency, so this doesn’t count as a deduction. Dick’s eyes aren’t red or puffy, but there’s something about his shoulders as he sits down between her and Babs.

“What’s wrong?” Artemis asks.

“Nothing,” he says immediately. Artemis looks over at Babs, who shrugs. “You look sad, Artemis.”

“Bitch sister got married to an asshole.” Artemis rolls her eyes. “You know, typical family problems. You, too.”

Shit, shit, shit, she’s not supposed to know! Artemis just asked Babs if she knew half a second ago, in an attempt to keep herself from revealing that she is actually privy to that information. She has ruined her own ploy to keep things secret. Her inner Batman oozes silent disappointment. As Dick starts, and Babs quirks an eyebrow, Artemis fights away panic and regret.

“Dysfunctional families, we’re like opium addicts, see?” Artemis rambles. “You know when someone from another den walks into the room.”

“We’re not dysfunctional,” Dick insists.

“Mm-hmm,” Maury says, as he coasts past them on the way to another table. “Just got a slut for a dad in all the papers. Nothing dysfunctional at all.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Dick admits. Then he sighs.

“What about you, Babs?” Artemis asks. The librarian shrugs. “So… what? I’m the only one who bared my soul? I hate you guys.”

\- - -

“You know what’d make you feel better?” Artemis asks after Dick finds his way up to her room. “I mean, unless that thing you don’t want to talk about is related to it.”

Wisely, Dick refrains from answering.

“We should have sex.”

Wait.

What is she doing? Regardless of how pretty Dick grew up to be, Artemis is not in proper sex-having condition. Her ribs are bruised. She’s pretty sure Dick isn’t feeling great, either, due to a walloping fall Nightwing had taken onto a fire escape about a week ago. Two cracked ribs.

Since Dick is the detective and a virgin she waits for an out.

“I just, um, I didn’t realize–I’m not exactly prepared–”

“No, I’m taking b.c.,” Artemis assures him, before kicking herself. He’d just sounded so genuinely flustered. “I started taking it because if I don’t, I’m in horrible pain for a week and no one wants that. Least of all me.”

Good fucking job on picking this exact moment to be honest. What the fuck is Artemis going to experience if she goes through with this?

“Oh. Well. Then… I guess there’s no reason to not have sex then.”

Nothing that they can admit, at least. They have a brief stare-down before Artemis finally decides to face the music. If she’s going to fuck a virgin on broken ribs, she might as well go the extra mile. Who knows, it might scare him off.

She grabs him around the lower back. Dick doesn’t say anything, but Artemis swears that he looks and _searches_ for the exact spot where the ropes dug in before putting his hands there. “Ow!”

“Sorry,” Dick says.

Like hell he is. That was retaliation, not accident.

“No, don’t be. My hair got caught on something. It happens.”

Artemis laughs, while mentally panicking at the game of injured chicken she’s gotten into. She’s not going to back off no matter how badly she wants to just lie down in a tub of ice, with a pile of it around her ribs. There’s one thing Lawrence and her have in common besides the hair: stubbornness. She’s scared boys off before.

But Nightwing was trained by Batman. Who knows how far he’ll go to save face?

Dick brushes her hair behind her shoulders, smiling. But his shoulders are hunching into something like irritation. She’s never seen Dick irritated. Maybe it was at her awful, transparent lie. Yeah, Artemis could have done better on that.

“So, are we just going to keep standing?” Dick asks. His voice, settled into a tenor, is light. Maybe he’s genuinely trying to keep the atmosphere cheerful.

Or maybe he can’t breathe too deeply.

Lying down would put unnecessary weight on either of their injured torsos. So, really, standing is the best option. Artemis refuses to think that the actual best option would just be not having sex. Especially after Dick backs her into a wall, which he probably also did on purpose, which makes Artemis mad.

Except, angry standing sex with a gymnast who is secretly a vigilante is kind of hot.

Artemis drags her nails down his back and digs in when she feels the bruise. That was kind of unfair.

Then sweet, courteous Dick bites her collarbone and she doesn’t even care if it’s payback anymore.

\- - -

After Dick is a safe distance away from her window, Artemis half-sprints, half-crawls to the medicine cabinet. Before now, she hadn’t even known that combination of movements was possible. She swears under her breath when she can’t find the Vicodin and turns around.

Paula is waiting in the hallway. “Looking for these?” She holds up the bottle.

“Oh, thanks.” Artemis grabs them. “Really, thanks, Mom. I think I wrenched something in my last mission.”

Her mother fixes a hard stare on her. “You were doing fine until three in the morning.”

“I…” How does Paula figure these things out? Regardless of how futile it is to keep lying, Artemis keeps lying. The only good thing about living with Lawrence is that he was a very forthright person, so lying to him was easier. “I woke up and my ribs were hurting more. I guess I slept on them wrong.”

“Or you were having sex and made things worse.”

Artemis pops a pill and nods. But, as the painkilling effect hasn’t kicked in, she just ends up hurting as well as humiliated.

“Handjobs are easier and more distracting if you need to hide your injuries.”

“I’d have done that,” Artemis says. “But he was hurt too, I think. Didn’t take his shirt off. I tried to call him on his bluff, but…”

Paula rolls her eyes and mutters something in Vietnamese. “Well, I hope you both learned something today.” She wheels over to the freezer and tosses an ice pack at Artemis.

After lying on the ice pack for about ten minutes and finally feeling less horrible, Artemis realizes that Dick was probably walking home with broken ribs and he’d probably snuck over to her house, too. She never hears a car pull up. If she’s feeling worse, then… oh god.

She’d rather have pain than overwhelming guilt. Artemis calls his cell.

There’s this strange, constant sound of wind when Dick answers.

“Hey, Dick?” Artemis asks over the noise. “Are you walking home?”

“Uh, no. I got a ride.”

Oh, so the windows are rolled down. The cold Gotham air might substitute for an ice pack if one is desperate enough. She really hopes she didn’t hurt him too bad. “Is whoever driving you sworn to secrecy?”

He clears his throat. “Yes on the secrecy, no on the driving.”

“Aren’t you afraid the paparazzi will see you on the bus?”

“Nope,” Dick says. “Anyway, thanks for calling! See you later!”

Before he hangs up, someone laughs really hard on the other end.

Someone familiar.

Artemis fights panic.

\- - -

Artemis wakes up, pops another Vicodin before her nerves can wake up enough to send pain up to her head, and stashes the lukewarm ice pack in the freezer for later.

Without ice or painkillers, Artemis’ body is not ready for the rigors of ballet. She’d put on a compression shirt under her shirt and blazer to keep herself from breathing too deeply, but wearing it has the side effect of having Artemis move like a robot, which is not ideal for dance. She ends up wearing a short-sleeved ballet sweater to hide the bite marks and rope burns. In seventy-five degree weather.

As she shuffles into the studio, the question of whether Artemis will ruin her health to salvage her dignity or duck out for the day hangs over her head, like a sword suspended from a hair.

It’s answered when Dick attempts to sneak next to the teacher and says quietly, “Vidya, I really have to sit this class out. And rehearsal. I, um, I have a broken rib.”

Nobody thinks anything of it. Except for Artemis. If Dick Grayson can’t soldier through the class, she feels little shame in giving up, herself.

Artemis unhands the barre and waves at Vidya from across the room. “Me, too.”

Silence falls.

Maury and Indra stare at Artemis’ unseasonable layering, then high-five each other.

“I called it!” Maury crows. “Dick Grayson is a slut just like his daddy!”

\- - -

The next time the team meets for training is Friday night. Wally does the 'I’ve got gossip that is juicy like an orange’ dance for the entirety of the session. This culminates when Black Canary asks for a private talk with Robin and Nightwing in the training room. Wally gathers Kaldur, Connor, M'gann, and Zatanna with Artemis in a hall far from the birds, clapping his hands together like an offensively bright-colored seal.

“Guys! You cannot know the extent of the dirt I have on Nightwing!”

Everyone groans.

“Shhh, listen. I swore that I wouldn’t tell Batman, or Robin. But he never said anything about not telling the team, and I _have_ to tell someone!”

“Wally! Nightwing is very private about his personal life and for good reason,” Kaldur tells him. “It might reveal–”

“Bah! It won’t reveal his secret identity.” Wally flaps a hand and goes on. “Guys up on land do this all the time. I bet everyone in Atlantis does, too.”

“Just tell us so I can go eat something,” Artemis snarls. Preferably with the Vicodin in her pocket.

“Okay. So a couple days ago, I got a call from Nightwing saying he needs a lift home. And I get there, but I ask why he isn’t calling Batman, and he’s like this…”

Wally doubles over, clutching his ribs. A pang of guilt and sympathy strikes Artemis. “And he tells me, 'Batman doesn’t know. Don’t tell him.’ So I ask, 'What are you doing in the middle of the night without Batman’s say so, huuuuuh?’ and he’s like, 'My girlfriend insisted on having sex but I couldn’t think of any answers to awkward questions and now I can’t walk home. Don’t tell Robin either. If he knows, Batman will find out.’”

“He has a _girlfriend?_ ” M'gann squeals, delighted.

Zatanna grabs a chair to prop herself up as she collapses into laughter. Kaldur tries and fails to hide the grin breaking out on his face, and Connor gives an unsurprised nod. This would probably be funnier if Artemis wasn’t in pain, or trying to hide her humiliation and guilt at being the girlfriend.

Then Artemis realizes Nightwing called her _his girlfriend_ and smiles.

“I don’t know her name, or what she looks like,” Wally admits. “Or exactly how long it’s been. You know, identity. He was right not to trust me with that, 'cause… look at me now! But based on the two or three words he said about her last night, she’s a little spitfire.”

“Ha fucking ha,” Artemis says before anyone can ask why she’s grinning like an idiot. “Our little bird grew up to be a stud.”

“I bet she’s got red hair,” Wally muses.

This time, Artemis laughs for real. The pain is worth it based solely on what she’ll say next. “Short red hair. Really skinny.”

“Pale. With freckles,” Zatanna adds, and clamps a hand over her mouth so Wally can’t see it.

“Talks a lot and eats even more,” Connor says.

“Yeah, that’d be cute–” Wally breaks off. “Hey!”

“Oh my god,” Zatanna wheezes. She attempts to sit in the chair after trailing into more laughter, but just ends up sliding onto the floor in the fetal position, holding her sides. “We’re assholes!”

The door opens and the three missing birds come in.

“Um, Zee?” Nightwing asks. “Are you okay?”

Zatanna points at Wally, then rolls onto her other side, laughing. Damn if her laugh isn’t contagious. Artemis grabs Zatanna and drags her up into the chair, then sits in the next chair over and lets the magician lean on her. Meanwhile Nightwing looks from Wally, to the rest of the team in hysterics. Out of the corner of her eye, Artemis notices he doesn’t linger quite as long on her.

That could be because she’s not laughing as hard as Zatanna. Artemis has to justify it, because M'gann is in the room and she’s not sure if anyone heard her thoughts.

“Wally, I’m going to _kill you!_ ” Nightwing yells.

Wally is subsequently not in the kitchen. Instead of following the speedster, Nightwing runs to the kitchen vent and clambers into it. But then he reappears, head first, and offers a hand to Robin.

“Robin! You want to know what that pouch of ball bearings is for?”

“Besides fixing the Batmobile?” Robin asks, in hushed awe.

Nightwing gives a slow, upside-down nod.

Robin runs over and accepts Nightwing’s hand up into the vent.

When Artemis looks over at the kitchen door, Black Canary smiles and turns around. “Well, Batman never kills, so I’ll just take Nightwing’s threat with a grain of salt.”

“Ew deen emos retaw,” Zatanna says, and the pitcher with several mugs appear on the table.

Artemis takes out another Vicodin and downs it while everyone’s distracted. Have sex with Dick: Nightwing orders and Robin obeys. Not the absolute worst thing that could happen.

“Artemis, you seem pained,” Kaldur says. “Have you aggravated your injuries?”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have laughed so hard.”

\- - -

On her second mission with the boy dujour, Artemis finds herself in a nice place for shooting. Hallway. No wind. No grass or dirt or branches to lose the arrow in. Easy picking. Artemis draws back her arrow as a guard approaches.

The guard yells and clutches his shoulder, but Artemis clearly sees that she has a trick arrow nocked. Also, she hasn’t fired said trick arrow yet. She carefully puts it back into her quiver, then looks to see a birdarang embedded in the guard’s shoulder. Behind her, Robin has another birdarang in hand.

“Stop.” Artemis goes right past panic into the dead zone, where she feels nothing except for the certain knowledge that if she doesn’t do something to stop Robin, things will escalate in a way that no one will like.

Robin draws his hand back.

“ ** _Robin!_** ” Artemis grabs the birdarang out of his hand, cutting herself with it. She will care later. “Fuck it, I told you to _stop!_ You hit him!”

“But–” Robin breaks off and stares helplessly at her hand. “He was a bad guy, right?”

Several alarm bells start ringing in her head. Artemis grabs Robin and drags him over to the guard. “We are going to perform first aid on this guard right now.”

“Why?”

Come to think of it, the alarm might just be the base’s security, because flashing red lights start accompanying it. But it suits the mood. Artemis shoves Robin forward. “You threw that birdarang. And it doesn’t explode and you don’t have unlimited ammo. So go on and get it back.”

“I–”

“Just pull it out,” Artemis orders him. “You pull them out of concrete, don’t you?”

The guard has panic in every twitch of his body. He struggles away when Robin reaches for him, but Robin is the one who flinches. “I can’t.”

“Well.” Artemis takes a roll of gauze out of her belt. “Maybe you shouldn’t be _stabbing_ people if it’s so hard to get your weapons out of them.”

After carefully dislodging the birdarang, Artemis rolls gauze around it so it won’t cut through the pouch she sticks it in. She bandages the guard’s shoulder roughly but thoroughly, getting her own blood all over him but too stubborn to quit. Then she gets up and brandishes a hand at Robin to follow her. Then Artemis winces, because that was her right hand.

“Come on.” She stalks away without checking to see if he’s following. First rule of giving orders: Act as if they are already being followed. Leaves little room for disobedience. “Mission’s compromised, but we can still save it.”

Robin follows her to the rest of the group without once trying to dart ahead.

Artemis realizes that she’s still dripping blood when M'gann gasps. “Artemis! Robin–what happened?!”

Once Artemis takes a moment to actually look at her hand, she realizes that it stings much worse than a usual cut, it’s really red, and the bleeding hasn’t stopped. Then there’s blood all over Robin’s elbow and–oh god, Robin’s face, too, from when she waved at him to follow.

“Oh. Wow. It’s been maybe…” Artemis wobbles and Kaldur takes her good arm. “Ten minutes–”

“Robin, are you hurt?” Kaldur asks.

He shakes his head.

“Aqualad.” Zatanna comes up, reaching for Artemis’ hand. “Should I–”

“No.”

It’s not Kaldur, who looks over Zatanna’s shoulder with a strange look of pride on his face. All those years of training with the Bat have finally came to fruition. Nightwing takes control of the group with one word.

Artemis gets to see the Bat-glare used for its actual purpose, as Nightwing looks around with deliberation: At the cut on her palm, then the messy splash of brownish-red on Artemis’ boots and pants. Nightwing’s gaze follows the red line extending into the hallway, then at the bloody birdarang sticking out of Artemis’ belt. Then Robin, scrubbing his face with his gloves.

“Kid Flash. Spray this over Artemis’ blood in the hall.” Nightwing gives a spray bottle the size of a mace can to Wally, who disappears and reappears. “I’m taking Artemis back to base right now. Cleaning that out will take hours and it needs stitches.”

He takes out a strange looking bandage with a sandpaper-like pad and wraps it around her palm. Despite the thinness, no blood soaks through.

Robin folds in on himself, not speaking or looking anyone in the eye.

\- - -

Robin disappears into the showers alone and fully clothed. Artemis sits in the medical ward as Nightwing disappears into his room and comes back with a bottle. He removes his gloves, washes his hands, then puts on another pair of latex gloves. Then he slides off her right arm-guard with care. It has long since turned brown and sticks to her skin.

“There’s cutting oil on our live steel.”

A knight’s word for a knight’s weapon.

As he explains, Nightwing uncovers the wound, which now has appalling red streaks at the edges. Then he pours a blob of the ointment onto a napkin and blots it onto Artemis’ hand.

Artemis knows what cutting oil means. It keeps the edges sharp longer. Also makes pulling blades out of walls a lot easier. Not something Lawrence employed. He’s more of a blunt objects person. She doesn’t know what kind of weapons her mom would have used.

“Not so good for people, huh?” Artemis asks.

“It’s been irritated, but it shouldn’t get infected.”

Now she knows why she didn’t stop bleeding. The birdarang left a scalpel-clean edge, and the oil made it so the edges couldn’t stick, either. Nightwing finishes applying whatever he has, then stares at her hand. It appears to pass whatever test he puts it to. He covers it with an over-sized clear plastic glove, and seals the cuff around her wrist with medical tape. Artemis feels a little bit better, but that could be a placebo effect.

“Now we wait two hours. Then we clean it out again and put in sutures.”

Artemis tries not to cross her arms. “You aren’t going to ask me what happened?”

“Batman will.”

Definitely a placebo. Her hand starts stinging again. Then Artemis feels really, really dizzy, and in an attempt to stop the room’s spinning, she grabs at the chair.

Nightwing frowns and puts a hand to her neck. “I’m going to give you an IV drip. Your blood pressure’s low.”

“I’ve lost a liter already?”

Nightwing looks down at her legs. Her blood-encrusted pants. Her blood-encrusted arm-guard. Some of it has pooled in her boot, too. That will be impossible to clean. “Well, you’re still awake. But let’s err on the side of caution.”

He slips his hands under her knees, lifts her onto the table, and even brushes her hair out from under her back. But all with clinical precision, nothing so personal as gentleness. Nightwing rummages around in a drawer for the pouch of saline, then prods at her elbow, swabs alcohol over a vein, and inserts the needle with as much professionalism as anyone could ask.

He is sixteen years old, Artemis remembers, as the woozy feeling goes away. The staff at Gotham General usually stick her twice before hitting a vein.

After an hour and forty-five minutes, Nightwing brings out a suture kit and fresh bandages. By the time he’s done arranging them, and putting on yet another pair of gloves, it has been two hours.

“Oh, goody,” Artemis drones. Nightwing removes the needle and Artemis gets up to wash the blood off her hands. The drip helped. She doesn’t feel off physically. Just nervous as to what’s going to happen when Batman gets here.

“Sorry,” Nightwing says. As he prepares the cut for the sutures, Artemis can only feel how cold the latex is.

“Nightwing, I’ve worked through worse,” Artemis tells him. “I’ll just be gauche for a while. As long as I don’t rip out the stitches or run around in sewers, I’ll be right back on the team.” Artemis looks around, but can’t find the oil cleaner. “You have a special stash of medical supplies, huh?”

“Batman taught us how to treat injuries caused by our gear, in case of accidents.”

She remembers how, for all his puff and bluster, Robin panics before even starting first aid. When Nightwing was unconscious, and now this. Artemis says, “He won’t learn his lesson.”

Nightwing shakes his head. “He will.”

“Of course,” Artemis says. She keeps her face still as Nightwing starts stitching her hand up.

“He’s trying,” Nightwing says. “He’s done just fine in training, he just needs more experience. A little polishing. Please don’t compare him to…”

He doesn’t finish, using the end of the stitch line as a convenient excuse. But Artemis knows what Nightwing didn’t say. “Look at us,” she mutters. “Arguing over a kid like some–”

He flinches and Artemis kicks herself.

She should know by now that Nightwing is so good with words because they hurt him the most.

\- - -

Yes, Batman probably just took the zeta beam into the cave. No, there is no dimmer switch, so the lights only turn on or off. But it still feels like Batman has materialized out of nowhere while Artemis and Nightwing join everyone else. And despite coming from the darkened med ward, Artemis’ eyes don’t hurt when faced with the lights in the training room.

Kaldur doesn’t even tell Batman that everyone is now present.

“Robin,” Batman says. “What happened?”

“I threw my birdarang at a guard,” Robin says.

Batman does not ask why. At this point Robin starts looking more like the twelve-year-old he is, running his hands through his hair. Scuffing a combat boot.

“Artemis told me to stop, but I didn’t.” Faced with Batman’s patient listening and no excuses to hide behind, Robin clams up even further. “I… She grabbed the birdarang and cut herself. Then I went over to try and pull the other one out of the guard. But I…” His voice cracks. “I couldn’t, so Artemis did.”

“Artemis.”

Artemis holds up her hand, bandaged. “It’s true.”

“I want to hear your side of the story.”

“He threw his birdarang, said he said he was aiming for the guard. No–that the guard was a bad guy. I knocked his other birdarang out of his hand…” Artemis sighs. “Do I really have to finish?”

He gives her the Bat-glare. After Artemis retells the story as she remembers it, there is a long pause. Then, the Dark Knight speaks: “Robin.”

Robin looks up, forehead creased but chin set with resignation. “You’re disappointed in me.”

“Yes.”

Everyone winces. Even Artemis. She can feel sorry for someone who fucked up this badly, even if she’s the one suffering because of it.

“You knowingly injured someone without due cause. You did not stop when a senior teammate ordered you. She was forced to remove your weapon, injuring herself. You did not perform first aid on either victim, although you have been trained to do so. Nor did you ensure that your teammate’s identity would remain uncompromised after she bled significantly.”

Robin mumbles something.

“You have compromised your teammate’s performance for the next month. Possibly longer. You could have compromised her abilities for the rest of her life, effectively retiring her against her will.”

Artemis decides not to bring up the fact that she is as good as ambidextrous and there are prosthetic arms which she could work with if she really had to. Batman knows. But Robin doesn’t.

Something drips from under Robin’s mask. “I’m sorry, Artemis.”

The air shifts. While Batman doesn’t skip a beat, Artemis knows that he has changed something.

“You will accompany Artemis during examinations. If she allows it, you will accompany her to physical therapy sessions. That is when you will begin patrolling with me. If she is declared fit to rejoin the team, you will be allowed to rejoin the team.”

\- - -

Nightwing accompanies her to the zeta beam.

“The kid’s all right, after all,” Artemis says. “I take back–why are you following me?”

“I have to take you to Gotham.”

Which is so fucking obvious that it’s come right back around to confusing. “Yes, and… What for?”

“We can’t shuttle Robin between Star City and Gotham,” Nightwing explains with great patience. “You’re the one with the injury. We’ll just say there’s a better physician here.”

Because–because Artemis the superhero is supposed to live in _Star City_ , and even if Green Arrow’s not her uncle, she’s still his sidekick. Shit. She forgot her own fake backstory. Maybe she should have taken a real codename. That would make the disconnect between her civilian and superhero identities a lot more distinct. (She told Robin, too. But the little cuss would have snooped anyway.)

“My cousin says Gotham’s got two things going for it,” Artemis says. “Construction and medicine.”

Her hand starts tingling.

\- - -

> _“_ __Soak your boots and clothes._ I’ll get the hydrogen peroxide.”_
> 
> \- Her mom  
>    
> 

> _“Artemis! What happened to your hand?”_
> 
> \- Indra

> _  
> “Oh, Jesus Christ! Seriously, what is **that** from?”_
> 
> \- Babs

> _  
> “I don’t even feel sorry, bitch. I bet you fucked Dick again.”_
> 
> \- Maury

> _  
> “Yes, I will let you use your laptop.”_
> 
> \- Her English teacher

\- - -

In the hallway, Dick appears. Without preamble, he takes her wrist and turns her palm up. There is a pause, one that goes on half-a-second too long, before he looks back up at her with the appropriate amount of concern and confusion. At least, for someone who helps Artemis with math and has sex with her every once in a while.

“Artemis, what happened to your hand?”

Something crunches in Artemis’ chest. Her body goes on autopilot and Artemis smirks–with the correct amount of political incorrectness. “I almost got mugged, but I grabbed the dude’s shank with my cat-like reflexes and turned it on him. Then I saved someone from a fire, and delivered a baby in a taxi.”

He looks hurt at the blatant lie. As if anything she could say in a public place would be anywhere near the truth.

“Cut myself cooking,” Artemis says. “Never let it be said that the kitchen is for the weak.”

He brings her hand up and touches his mouth to her unbandaged fingers. The sound that escapes from Artemis could pass for a laugh, if nobody’s listening too closely.

“You’ve been waiting to do that.”

“Only a little while,” Dick says.

As if he hadn’t been there last night and this was a convenient excuse. Or maybe–maybe it was because he _had_ stitched her up and given her a transfusion, but stopped himself because people were watching. Even if the Bat wasn’t there, he might as well have been. And Artemis isn’t supposed to be Nightwing’s girlfriend.

Suddenly having a secret identity feels ridiculous.

Artemis is tired of lying. Of trying to guess at the reasons behind ordinary motions. And it only took getting her hand sliced open, plus losing almost a liter of blood for her to start feeling it. She looks down and shakes her head, hard.

Dick tilts her chin up with two fingers and gives her a kiss on the lips.

Somebody, probably Maury, whistles. But that’s not why the kiss stays in the back of Artemis’ mind.

\- - -

Artemis counts her arrows, cleans them all, and then inspects her civilian longbow for any signs of wear. This has happened four times in the past two days. By now there isn’t even dust on the quiver. Dick watches, sitting against the wall on her bed. He doesn’t try to help when she drops the chamois cloth. He doesn’t ask if she’ll ever be able to shoot again. Which is great, because she’d probably yell at Dick if he did.

Finally Artemis picks up the archery glove that Dick gave her, way back when he was still cute and short. She’s only used it a few times, she remembers with guilt. But the leather is still good. Must have been expensive.

Artemis puts it back in her quiver, heads to the bed, and leans against Dick’s shoulder. “You remember when climbing up through people’s windows was actually weird?”

He smiles and slips an arm into the small of her back. “Why didn’t you attack me, anyway? I could have been a crazed stalker.”

“Okay, Dick?” Artemis slips a hand up the back of his shirt. “That question was actually a lead-in to you taking your pants off.”

Dick looks confused. As he should, because that was a full-out lie and it didn’t even make sense.

“No, not really,” Artemis tells him. “I’m just suddenly horny. Like when your life flashes before your eyes in a near death experience. But with me, it’s sex right after getting my hand sliced open.”

Why is Artemis even lying? Oh, right. She’s in Gotham. She can’t just _tell him_ that after two hours of impersonal touching and scrubbing blood out of her clothes, getting a kiss in the hall was almost like getting burned. Downplaying affection is how people show affection here. The Batman is a prime example, giving a second chance and then another to a troubled kid. Possibly a third if Artemis counts rescuing Robin from North Gotham in the first place.

Everyone hides their words except for Dick, who scrubs them free of dirt and unnecessary prefixes.

“But your hand,” Dick protests. “We can’t–”

“Dick, take off your shirt.”

He hesitates.

“Please.”

He waits till Artemis takes her hands out of his shirt before removing it. There are bruises littered all over Dick’s stomach, and probably his back. Fresh, dark. Like someone spilled crappy house paint over the statue of a Greek hero. This time, Artemis doesn’t know where he got them. She doesn’t even know if she wants to know.

“And you were worried about my hand,” she says.

“It’s more important.”

Meaning it’s her choice to go on or not.

Artemis leans forward, unbuckling Dick’s pants with her good hand.

She remembers her mother saying 'I hope you learned something’.

Maybe it didn’t mean what Artemis thought at first–'don’t have sex while injured.’ Maybe Paula was trying to tell her that if she keeps waiting for a day when they’re not in pain to have sex, they’ll never have it unless they both retire or the world is quiet. And Artemis knows two things.

She doesn’t want to retire.

The world will never be quiet.

They say nothing to each other from the minute Artemis slides her shirt off to the minute Dick finishes redressing and examines her hand. That way they don’t have to lie.

\- - -

Removed from the vigilante grapevine, Artemis realizes that it actually is kind of quiet in Gotham. She also realizes how little she actually sees Dick outside of school.

The rest of the week passes with little fanfare except for her first appointment. Dr. Thompkins refrains from asking how she got the cut, or the stitches, which is pretty much doctor-patient etiquette in Gotham. But she also refrains from asking why a young boy in dark glasses and an old hoodie of indeterminate color accompanies her to all the appointments. Which is just ridiculous.

Artemis gets a pamphlet describing the anatomy of a human hand. After scanning the parts which were cut, Artemis hands it to Robin.

The muscle at the base of her thumb has been cut the deepest, as well as the one at her pinky. So her middle three fingers aren’t too badly off except for how the skin needed stretching. (And Dr. Thompkins commends whoever stitched it.) But she did nick the radial artery at the base of her thumb, explaining the blood loss. And a nerve, which explains the tingling. Robin squirms.

\- - -

Artemis receives a package in the mail which is soft, floppy, and stamped with the Gotham academy logo. It’s her graduation cap and gown in blue satin. Paula coos and congratulates her and takes a picture with Artemis’ phone.

Which is a good thing, because when she gets to school for the rehearsal, Maury in his black robes grabs her around the waist, and Indra steals her cap.

“No!” Artemis yells. “Stop! You have your own!”

She lunges for it but Indra takes out a royal blue piece of paper and tapes it to the top.

“What the hell?” Artemis snatches it. The paper flops down and she stares at it incredulously. “Nobody will even see this, you assholes!”

“Shut up and let us finish, bitch!” Maury says. “It’s a GA tradition.”

Indra takes out another piece of paper and folds it before attaching the paper to the cap. Then she sticks the fixed hat on Artemis’ head and snaps a picture before Artemis can do anything. In the picture, Artemis is scowling with crossed arms and a pair of Bat ears erupt from her cap. She tries really, really hard to keep from smiling and points at Maury.

“Shouldn’t the guys be Batman? You’re in black.”

“Bitch, please,” Maury says. “The girls are Batman and the boys are Captain America.”

Artemis scowls again. This time, Maury snaps a picture. “That doesn’t even make sense! Captain America wears blue!”

“Red, white, AND blue, because Captain America is a SOLDIER who fights for FREEDOM!” Maury yells. “What’s the Bat do? He hides, and takes care of little kids, and has a fancy car but he always be crashing it. Like a woman.”

He displays the top of his cap, which has the Captain America shield taped over it. Finally, Artemis gives in, doubling over. Indra hands her a bottle of water, thoughtfully provided by the rehearsal crew, and helps her up.

“But seriously,” Maury says. “Since we’re all graduating, we need to talk about how it is going to be open season on your sweet little Dickie-bird once you’re living the college life.”

Artemis thinks. Then she sighs. “It sure is.”

“And you know it won’t just be girls, right?” Indra asks. “I would fuck that boy if I was straight. Just saying.”

“I’d fuck him if I was gay,” Maury adds. “Just saying.”

“I’m so flattered that a lesbian and a straight dude think I have good taste in men,” Artemis snaps. She sits down on the grass and swigs her water. “Anyway. Dick should learn to fend for himself.”

“That’s cold, Artemis,” Indra says.

“Don’t even lie,” Artemis tells them. “You’re glad I’m breaking up with him, even if you’re a straight guy and a lesbian.”

Indra and Maury look at each other.

“Sharing the guilt,” Maury says. “One-two-three–yeah.”

“Yeah,” Indra choruses. “So. How are you going to tell him?”

Artemis shrugs. “Gently, I guess.”

They look at each other and burst out laughing.

“Artemis?” Maury wipes his eyes. “ _Gentle?_ Did y'all hear that?”

“You broke his ribs having sex with him!” Indra reminds her.

“When did I ever say–”

“And what is up with your hand?” Maury asks. “I saw you in the hall. You corrupted that boy! Gave him a taste for blood like some vampire succubus whore!”

Artemis throws her hands up, and winces as her scar tugs. “Whatever! It’s none of your business!”

\- - -

Another week passes and the incision has healed enough for therapy. The tingling is still there, but fading and not painful. Dr. Thompkins, who now insists on being called Leslie, assures Artemis and Robin that there’s nothing to worry about.

From the look on Robin’s face, he worries anyway. Artemis gets another pamphlet filled with diagrams of hand and wrist exercises. The appointment consists of Dr. Thompkins guiding her through most of them and checking on her scar every now and then.

Even though stretching the scar hurts, Robin flinches more than Artemis.

\- - -

Dick knocks on the front door and is ambushed by Paula, who gives him the news that Artemis is graduating. She promptly returns to her cooking.

“That’s great!” Dick tells her as Artemis leads the way to her room. “Where are you going?”

Artemis shrugs. “I’ve applied to UCLA, Stanford, Princeton, and Colombia.”

“Let me guess.” Dick takes a deep breath. “Heavy emphasis on languages. Since you’re already trilingual, you want to be a translator.”

This would be the start of a great conversation if Artemis wasn’t supposed to be breaking up with him.

“Dick?” Be nice, be nice. “You’re not graduating for two more years, are you?”

“Yeah, I–” He stops. “Oh.”

“Don’t think that–” Artemis stops to organize her thoughts. When she doesn’t, things go wrong. “Okay, most of the time I forgot that you’re actually two years younger than me. But even if you weren’t, we probably won’t be going to the same college. It’s not fair to either of us, trying to keep a high-school relationship going long-distance when we might be different people by the time it ends.”

They are already different people on and off the team. Trying to manage four personalities in one relationship is exhausting. Dick sighs.

“But, hey.” Artemis leans against him. “I’ll be back over the summer. Just so you know.”

A pause.

“You know when you first talked to me and asked if I was okay?” Dick asks. “And when it turned out I was okay, you walked off like it didn’t really matter to you?”

Artemis sits up, away from him. “Dick, I know I just broke up with you, but I don’t like where this conversation is going.”

“No, it’s okay. Trust me.”

Since it is Dick, she trusts him.

“As far as you knew, I was a complete stranger. So, you must have cared at least a little. In general.” Artemis shrugs. “And you walking off was your own way of showing that you were relieved, without being obvious about it. I guess I wanted to be one of those people who you didn’t just secretly care about.”

Nightwing’s one to talk. He’s under a gag order from the Bat. He can’t reveal her identity as his girlfriend (now ex) without revealing his identity as Dick Grayson. Therefore he’s in the one relationship he can’t be open about. Thus is the problem with superheroes dating. And even then, he’s in Gotham.

But Artemis has to respect people with the grit to chase unattainable goals.

“I care about you.” Artemis leans on him again.

“Even though–” Dick laughs a little. “We’ve just broken up?”

“Yeah. You don’t ever have to worry about that.”

\- - -

Week three: Artemis is given a weird little thing that looks like a nutcracker for strengthening her hand, since a bird told Leslie that Artemis is an archer. Interesting choice of words. Or, Artemis thinks, diction.

Week four: Artemis gets to hold a pen and write her name. Comparing it to her old writing, it looks okay, if shaky. Leslie congratulates her on completing the course, and sets them both free with hopes that neither will return.

\- - -

Batman arrives at a rendezvous point in the hills one week after Artemis has gotten her hand back in. He’s evaluating Artemis’ recovery. She is in civilian attire. Robin, her little shadow, is also in civilian clothes, a black hoodie. Artemis puts on the glove that Dick gave her, and shoots at a target with her civilian longbow. Six times, with a nice cluster around the bullseye. Then she spars with Robin, who pulls his punches for the first time since he’s been on the team.

“Satisfactory performance,” Batman says. “You are ready to rejoin the team.”

While Artemis looks down to unstring her longbow and puts her glove away, Batman disappears, leaving a nervous Robin behind.

“You heard the Bat,” Artemis says. “Suit up.”

Artemis grabs Robin’s arm before he can hurry down some secret trail to the Batmobile, and slicks back his hair with her good hand. He grumbles and re-musses it before running off. Artemis just yanks off her sweater and jeans before going through the Gotham zeta beam. She’s been waiting for this day.

There’s a squishy group hug with Zatanna and M'gann. All the boys ask to look at her scar before giving her one-armed man hugs, even Kaldur. Nightwing smiles and gives her a regular person hug, then looks up as the zeta beam flashes.

Artemis cranes her neck to see Robin, enclosed in the cape of the Bat.

“You.” Robin shrinks into Batman’s cape, as Artemis twists loosely out of Nightwing’s hug and crooks her right hand. “I’ve got something to say, you little shit.” (“Artemis!” someone whispers. It doesn’t matter who.)

He seems reluctant to leave, but at the same time reluctant to stay. Once Robin finally reaches Artemis, she hugs him and slicks his hair back again, since that annoys him more than messing it.

“Here’s looking at you, Boy Wonder,” Artemis says. “Welcome back.”

Nightwing is the first to echo her welcome, scooping up Robin, who grouches and squirms. After so much meekness, Artemis is relieved that Robin’s gotten a little of his old spunk back.

\- - -

“Artemis!” She looks back to find Dick across the cafeteria, but not so far that she can’t see him wink. Right before he falls to his knees in the crowd of bewildered classmates. “ARTEMIS! WHY?!”

“It would never work between us, Dick!” Artemis strains to keep her face neutral as everyone drops what they’re doing to watch. “I’m going to study languages and become a translator while you’re going to… Julliard. Or, I don’t know, Davis.”

“ _Davis?_ ” Dick asks. “Did I ever tell you that I wanted to be a doctor?”

Well, he’d done a good enough job on her hand… But, Artemis knows first-aid too, and she has no intention of being a doctor, either. And she wasn’t thinking of the pre-med school, anyway, so why is she– “No, computer science!”

“That’s Berkeley.”

“Whatever!” Artemis waves at him to continue. “Berkeley.”

“The pain!” He clutches his scalp. “My possible career vies with my lady! But who else in all the heavens and earth could find it in their heart to love a tall, intelligent, witty gymnast with cerulean eyes, raven hair, and flawless porcelain skin? Who, I ask, possibly could?”

Laughing silently, Babs puts her head on the table and raises her hand. Then every other girl in the school raises her hand, including Indra and Chelsea. Then Maury clears his throat and raises his hand.

“Don’t get ideas!” he says. “I’m just doing this 'cause you got a rich daddy.”

All of the boys raise their hands with varying levels of sincerity and hesitation.

“I dreamed a dream of time gone by!” Dick sobs himself into singing a vaguely familiar show tune. “When hope was high and life worth living! I dreamed that love would never die!”

Artemis laughs once, and then she has to wipe her eyes. “I’m going to miss you, Dick.”

\- - -

“I’m going to miss you, Artemis,” Nightwing says.

“Princeton! Great job!” Wally congratulates her with a high five. He’s gotten into Stanford, all the way in California. Even though the zeta beams and his own super speed render distance meaningless, he’s decided to study full time. “Ivy League!”

“Yeah. When I got the news, I was going to apply for a scholarship, but then I got a full ride from the Bruce Wayne Foundation.”

“Oh, really?” Wally grins. “I hear Princeton was _the founder’s_ old college.”

“What a fortuitous coincidence,” Kaldur says, innocently.

Robin snorts.

“That’s great!” Nightwing comments, far too innocently. Then he changes the subject in a natural fashion. Inwardly, Artemis smirks. “What are you majoring in?”

Artemis shrugs. “I was thinking a double major. Translation and human values.”

“Oh. An overtime student, huh?” Not without admiration, Nightwing shifts to look as forlorn as anyone with hidden eyes can look. It’s in his shoulders. “Well, there’s a great language department there…”

M'gann picks up the slack. “You’re retiring? You just got back!”

“Not forever,” Artemis says. “I might come around during the summer.”

“Well, if you do come back,” Kaldur says. “We will be glad to have you for however long you can stay.”

“Go get 'em, tiger.” Nightwing gives her the last hug of the day.

Artemis smiles and corrects him: “Tigress.”

\- - -

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's looking at you, readers.
> 
> Yes, this is the end. I have a sequel halfway written, but know that it's on indefinite hiatus. I will post what I have. I know what happens. But it's been so long since I actually wrote for the Young Justice fandom, and the subject matter is so extremely personal and intense for me that writing it was actually very detrimental to my mental health. I don't know if I can finish writing it. I am open to trying, but only once I am sure that I will not regress back to an unhealthy state of mind.


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